


Soulmates

by TheZetak



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Harry Potter Loves Tom Riddle, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Necromancer Harry Potter, Possessive Tom Riddle, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Sane Tom Riddle, Seer Gellert Grindelwald, Seer Luna Lovegood, Smart Harry Potter, Soulmates, The Deathly Hallows, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Time Travel, Time Travelling Harry Potter, Tom Riddle Loves Harry Potter, War with Grindelwald, Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheZetak/pseuds/TheZetak
Summary: In a world where soulmates are considered strange and beautiful in equal measure, no one tells Harry Potter he shouldn't approach most of the magical artifacts in Grimmauld Place cellar, a place not even Sirius himself dares to step on. Let alone the one that only works with the goal of uniting soulmates whose paths have become stony.Daphne Greengrass, born and raised pureblood witch, has no such excuse but she really wants to know why that unusual watch is kept among her soulmate's objects.Now both are together and back in time unable to return without first having united their souls with the ones their destiny dictates.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Daphne Greengrass & Harry Potter, Gellert Grindelwald & Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 83
Kudos: 411





	1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter discovers that soulmates exist outside fairy tales when he turns seven. The first mark over his left clavicle blooming kisses on the pale skin. _‘He did great things’_

When he asks, his teacher smiles warmly at him, with surprise and concern flashing in her gaze as blue as the ocean paintings Harry had seen splattered in the school books his aunt allowed him to peruse. She explains to him that marks are other people's opinion on his soulmate, that he is a lucky boy to have a mark and that no matter what others may think to have a soulmates is beautiful.

A few days later, she is the one who gives him his first possession: a book about soulmates. 

Many people regard soul ties as unnatural, far from God's laws and all that is right. Soulmates do not repair in race or gender, for example, something that turns out to be a problem for many people. According to the book, there have been executions of people who did not meet the standards of correctness throughout history and who died because of having a soul bond.

Mr. Vernon and Mrs. Petunia Dursley are part of that vocal group of people who detest anything that is different from their perception of right. And Harry, with a soulmate somewhere in the world waiting for him, is part of the group of people the Dursleys consider unnatural.

Harry somehow manages to have his mark always covered by clothing. He doesn't want his uncles to hate him more than they already do when he knows they would freak out if they knew he has a soul bond. And Harry does not want to wonder what would happen in case of them learning that his soulmate is also a him.

The second mark wraps around his right ankle. _‘He's handsome, kind, charming and perfect to show off.’_

Harry is nine years old and looking at the words makes his stomach burst with warm emotions. 

_‘He's a bloody bastard,’_ appears at some point in his ten years, over one of his ribs. It's the first negative note towards his soulmate and Harry fumes for weeks at the person who will dare to say such words. He knows he shouldn't be so outraged in name of a man he doesn't even know yet, but that doesn't stop him from getting upset every time more insults start to splash his stomach thereafter.

_‘I hate him’. ‘Slimy Snake.’ ‘Everyone was finally safe when he died.’_

The last one makes Harry's chest heave with concern. His soulmate cannot be dead. 

No. No. No.

With shaking hands, he shifts one of the broken boards underneath the cot in his closet to grab his book about soulmates. Slowly, he reads the chapter about the death of a soul mate. Hugging the book, Harry is flooded with relief.

Soulmates are capable of feel when their other half has passed away. People have died from the grief and pain of losing their soulmate. The ones born with a dead soulmate tend to experience a stinging sense of emptiness in their lives as if a piece is missing from the puzzle that constitutes their souls and, without it, nothing in life makes sense.

Harry's soulmate is alive.

_He's alive._

.

Daphne Greengrass has no soulmate. Or in other words, she has a soulmate. One that is now dead.

Her parents had been delighted when the first mark blossomed, referring to a man of great manners and possible great fortune. In the wizarding world, soulmates are unusual, yes, but considered the most beautiful of the blessings that have been bestowed by magic.

There were other marks, of course, all vague and making it difficult to discern the identity of her soulmate. Not until she is almost eleven years old and in the middle of a garden party at the Malfoy family mansion, surrounded by the heirs of several pureblood families. Not until pain erupts in her chest, each of the marks burning into her skin causing her body to collapse and be embraced by darkness.

As soon as she wakes up, Daphne has no soulmate.

Now is dead, leaving the void to settle not only in Daphne's world but also in the lives of his family.

“Abraxas Malfoy will always be remembered as a man of extraordinary manners and a member of one of the most prestigious houses in the country,” her mother says while sighing with pity, not remembering that much of what was said in her sentence are the exact words that trace Daphne's shoulder blade.

And for brief a moment, the girl allows herself to hate her. _Her soulmate is dead._ Daphne's mother only cares about the loss of what would have meant in pureblood society for her daughter being bonded to a member of the Malfoy family. _Her soulmate is dead._ Daphne gets a betrothal proposal from the Malfoy's, a contract to marry the heir, Draco, when they both come of age.

Her soul mate is dead. _Her soulmate is dead._ **Her soulmate is dead.**

Daphne hates it.

.

Harry's first mark is pronounced by Ollivander, of all people.

"... it's brother gave you that scar. He did great things,” says the old man and Harry's world implodes, burns and the ashes leaved behind become dots that swim in his vision. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great.”

Hagrid isn't there, which is a relief because he can't see the way Harry's eyes widen nor the way the grip on his new wand loosens and the hopes for a future alongside the person his soul belongs to are shattered.

He leaves the store numb. His soulmate, supposedly kind and great, the reason behind the warmth that overwhelms Harry in the saddest days, the reason for the instant blossoming of happiness that occurs when tracing his marks with cold fingers every night, the reason why... no. No. Harry won't think that way. Not about the person responsible for the suffering in his life. Not about Lord Voldemort, his parents murderer.

Harry blames the years of love built by a child's fantasies and hopes at the fact that he is not devastated by the identity of his soulmate and what he stands for. His sadness comes from the knowledge that his soulmate hates him, wants him dead like his parents.

His parents are dead and they died to save Harry from his soul mate.

His soul mate is alive and everyone in this new world reveres Harry because they believe he is responsible for his supposed death.

"Thank you," sobs a lady in the Leaky Cauldron, "oh, Harry Potter, thank you, everyone was finally safe when he died."

His soulmate is alive, Harry tells himself to hold back the angry curl that threatens to invade his face. Words shouldn't make him feel better, they shouldn't calm him down, but the effect still happens.

Upon returning to the Dursleys a new mark has blossomed on his chest, right above his heart. _‘He is my best friend.’_ Harry caresses the words, hating himself for how warm they feel under his touch.

His soulmate is alive.

.

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are the first friends Harry makes on the train to Hogwarts.

None of them have a soulmate.

Harry realizes this fact at the banquet, when Hermione mutters about how incredible and powerful Albus Dumbledore must be due to the soulmarks on his wrists. To Muggles, meeting a person with a soulbond is not common but it is not unusual either; however, Hermione is probably part of the group of people who have never in their life crossed paths with someone who possesses a soulmate, only knowing of their existence from people with soul ties who are famous on television.

Of course later that year Harry will understand that some of the muggle-born views are wrong, that multiple studies of wizards specializing in the field of soul magic have shown that soul bonds are not formed by the amount of power possessed by an individual. Muggles and Squibs also have soulmates and that fact has not infused them with magic.

In Ron's family only Fred and George have a soulmate, sharing what is known as a 'platonic bond', very common among twin brothers. "It's the only kind of soul bond we've had in the Weasley family for generations. Really, it makes us quite special" Percy declares at the table. 

Three seats away from him George rolls his eyes and Fred does a silent imitation of the prefect's words, his chin and back straight with a pretentious grin curving his amused lips.

Everyone laughs.

Harry absently strokes his collarbone. At the professors podium, for a second too fast to be noticed, someone's gaze glows crimson.

.

It becomes Harry's hobby to hide in the less-visited area of the library at the end of Quidditch practice.

Growing up Harry was left behind by the children in his school and neighborhood, having to use his imagination and his cousin Dudley's discarded toys for fun. Silence had grown to be his friend and in the last few months at Hogwarts, with all its noisy spaces, and Harry misses it. So he hides in places of the library Hermione wouldn't go into and reads the books that no one thinks of importance when less dusty copies of the same subjects are found on the main shelves.

"Would you mind reaching the book to your right for me?" A male voice questions, making Harry jump. He lifts his head to see Professor Quirrell within a few feet of him.

Harry hands it to him. The man smiles at him gratefully.

"I see you're interested in vampire culture," says the professor with a glance at the cover in Harry's hands. 

The young wizard bites his lip. Vampires are a topic he shouldn't study until late in his third year, according to Hermione, and he also remembers rumors about Quirrell's relationship with the creatures. 

The man must notice his alarmed look, because he murmurs: “Don't worry, I would never separate a student from his thirst for knowledge. I myself tended to read books that were outside of those considered suitable for my school age during my youth.”

Harry sighs. “Thanks, sir”

“You're welcome. Do you like it?”

The first year hesitates a moment before looking up boldly. "I think the author is convinced that vampires are monsters to eradicate, sir."

"And you don't consider them as such?" 

Harry's gaze searches the professor's face. Quirrell is not angry. Not like McGonagall or Hermione would be. Harry knows this because his friend had argued with a Slytherin of their year about the prohibition of certain types of creature weeks ago in the library and Hermione had stormed out insulting the names of all the pureblood families in her knowledge.

Ron, who hates anything to do with the snake house, had agreed with her. And the Transfiguration teacher ended up taking points from the other girl and giving her detention for having 'deviant ideas'. It wasn't a big deal for the other students, not in general, but for Harry it had meant a lot more and probably for the girl who was punished for doing nothing wrong that was the case as well.

"Umm... I think they're just different from us," he admits. “Being different doesn't make you evil.”

Quirrell nods, an almost pleased smile on his face.

“You will find that many of the authors on this subject are the same as the one in your hands. You know what else these people have in common, Harry? They never interacted with a vampire beyond murdering them. If you want a book that is more aligned with your ideas, I recommend reading Eldred Worple. He lived among vampires for years before writing his book. Although, personally, Egorov's writing is my favorite. There are no copies of his books in the Hogwarts library. But maybe I can lend you mine.”

"Really, sir?"

"Only if you promise to take care of it," he assures, starting to walk away. “Come see me in my office if you are interested.”

Harry smiles.

Later that day Quirrell warns him to be more careful in sharing his thoughts on what some wizards consider 'evil' and makes Harry promise to manteing their conversations a secret. 

The next time he has Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry realizes that Quirrell had lost his stutter during their meetings alone. Noticing the realization on Harry's face, the teacher offers him a wink when the other students are focused on their notes.

Harry blames the dancing crimson dots in the man's vision on a simple play of light.

.

"You really don't want it back, sir? It's your book.”

"It belongs to you now, Harry," Quirell says. “Consider it my Yule's gift.”

"Yule?"

The grayish light filtering through Quirrell's office window frames part of his face as he turns to look at Harry. "Oh Harry, there is so much you have to learn. I... Would you let me teach you?" 

Harry doesn't hold back his smile. "I think you already know my answer, sir”

.

"Wait a minute. There are spells that can hide things? So that is how he did it!”

Quirrell raises an eyebrow.

"I found these mirror in an empty classroom that kept showing me ... what I want," Harry explains. “I kept going back there until yesterday when the Headmaster appeared out of nowhere. He wasn't there when I arrived and I didn't see him enter. Was he there the entire time hidden under a spell?

Quirrell's brow pinches. “I think so. In your place, any other wizard would have been able to sense the illusions or been paranoid enough to cast a spell that detects them. I think you should be more careful from now on Harry, or how else will you know when someone is watching you?

Harry's lips curl into a smile. He'd learned to understand Quirrell's signals, and that's one of them. The man, despite maintaining an almost serene exterior, has just expressed his concern for Harry's safety.

"Are you going to teach me those spells, sir?" he inquires.

Quirrell's eyes light up as he nodded. "But don't think you're going to save yourself from today's lesson. Now tell me, have you read the book I gave you the week before?”

"Yeah! I even memorized some of the runes already. When I'm learning them at Hogwarts? 

"I told you, Harry, it's a third year elective."

"But that's a very long time," Harry complains and lengthening his 'o' vocalization. 

Quirrell looks at him. "Is it good that you have me now, isn't it?"

.

Daphne enjoys the afternoons on the The Black Lake's border. Loves to receive the gentle caress of the wind on her cheeks, the feeling of the sand in her hands and the sound of the activity from sea creatures in the water.

She wonders if her soulmate enjoyed this part of Hogwarts in his student years as well. If he would come to the Lake to shelter in the peaceful climate hidden within the magical bustle that constitutes the castle as she does. She knows that Draco finds it uncomfortable and prefers to be around people to find peace.

It's one of the many things they don't have in common.

However, Daphne doesn't blame him. The blond had a lonely childhood in Malfoy Manor and the simple idea of silence with the memory of an immaculate place where every move he made would be informed and involved a reprimand scares him.

Draco and Daphne are not meant to be together, platonically or romantically. That does not prevent their marriage contract from having made them each other's closest friends. Draco wouldn't tell his innermost secrets to Crabbe or Goyle but he would tell Daphne. Draco would not accept his problems nor mistakes and would ask any of his other companions in Slytherin for help. He would go to Daphne. And even if she didn't know how to help still would hold his hand and let him know that everything will be okay because, whatever that happens, they will face it together.

Daphne is about to leave when she hears the crunch of the earth behind her. She stands quietly and waits until the sound creeps up to a stop behind her. The girl turns to see Draco's father. It's the first time she has met him so closely. All her visits to Malfoy Manor were supervised by Lady Narcissa, Draco's mother, as the man stood on the opposite wing of the property, acknowledging him only for the times she has seen him in family photos and the extraordinary resemblance he has to his son.

His hair is tied up in a low bow and his gloved hands caress the walking cane shaped like a serpent's head underneath. "Daphne Greengrass." 

"Lucius Malfoy," she says, offering the minimal bow that must be done when introducing herself to a person of greater title. It's just a slight tilt. Both for Daphne's future status as Head of her family and the possibility of the man becoming her father-in-law if Draco doesn't end up running away with someone after graduation from Hogwarts.

They have not yet passed what his father has told her are the 'worst years' of adolescence. Maybe Draco will become a rebellious young man fleeing the world at the hand of some muggle-born

That is, of course, impossible. The indignant face the blond would make if he found out about her thoughts makes the corners of her mouth curl into a smile.

Daphne raises her hand to the level of her hips and Lord Malfoy brings his lips to the back of her hand, maintaining the separation according to the social positions of both before returning to his previous place. Her etiquette instructor would burst into tears if she saw the measure in distance that few purebloods achieve to such a point of perfection in addition to the elegance with it was performed. 

"I hope your time at Hogwarts is pleasant."

Daphne nods. “Quite.”

"Lord Greengrass commented that you were punished for arguing with another student. What was troublesome enough to cause you a full month of detention?"

Does Lord Malfoy want to know if the candidate for his heir's wife fit the position? No, if that were the case, he wouldn't be meeting her months after the fact when there are just days until the end of the school year. 

“The discussion was with a girl convinced that any type of relationship between a veela and another person should be not allew. In her perspective nothing would be consensual considering the attraction that Veelas produce to people around the”, she explains.

Lord Malfoy raises an eyebrow while seeing at her with interest. And... oh. The realization hits Daphne. He's just looking for a conversation. No ulterior motives, it's as simple as that. 

“The girl is muggleborn and it was the first time she read anything about veelas. Didn't even finish reading the chapter before coming to conclusions and vocalizing her disagreement with the legal status of human-veela relations.”

"Seems to be that mudblood type," Lord Malfoy says dismissively.

“Oh, she is”

Hermione Granger is the kind of muggleborn that most of the Ancient and Noble families of Wizarding World detest. The type that freak out about how wrong their culture is without caring or try to understand it first. The type that points their index finger at anything that doesn't meet their vision of what's correct and yells 'Wicked!’. The type who rejects each of their traditions without knowing that in doing so they also reject some of the gift of Lady Magic in the process.

"In any other instance I wouldn't have stopped her from making a fuss, but Draco was studying a few tables away." 

Daphne can see the almost imperceptible widening of Lord Malfoy's eyes, the annoyance that fills him. She couldn't allow that girl rant about whether finding love should be allowed for his friend or not. She just couldn't.

Draco, with his three-quarter veela heritage, had asked Daphne later that day if everyone else thought what Granger had said was true. Whether love would be real when he found it or would it just be a consequence of his veela nature. A simple illusion.

That day Daphne Greegrass had wanted to do things to Hermione Granger that a respectable lady should not speak of in public. Many, many things.

"It seems to me you did the right thing to do." Lord Malfoy maintains a neutral voice, but his mask, while not disappearing, fades around the edges. The wind releases a lock of his hair and cradles it behind his ear. “I aprecciate it”. 

"Draco is my friend. I would never allow anyone to make him feel the way that girl did, intentional or not, Lord Malfoy.”

"Call me Lucius," he says. Daphne blinks. “You are my father's soulmate and it is undeniable how much you love my son. Call me Lucius,” he repeats.

"Lucius," she mutters and nods. It's a good name. “I'm Daphne.”

"I think a trip to France this summer will be good for Draco. His cousin Fleur had her flourish last year and it will be good for him to be in touch with someone who shares that part of his heritage. It will help if there is ever a repeat of the situation with the muggleborn girl.”

“Sounds good.”

"I thought so," Lucius says, the same air of pride Draco exudes when someone agrees with him envelops the man.

"I should go back," Daphne gives a glance at the castle. She takes a few steps forward.

"My father would have liked you," the man announces behind her. He's staring at the sand under his shoes, his knuckles whitish from the grip on his walking cane. If Daphne didn't know Lucius's son and how much they are alike, the pause in his voice would have been lost. “He would have approved what you did for Draco. He was associated with many Hufflepuffs in his time. Liked loyalty over many things.”

Daphne has to restrain herself from putting a hand on her waist, where she knows the last words of that sentence are. "Thank you, Lucius."

Walking to the castle, she allows herself to smile.

.

Quirrell is Lord Voldemort.

_Quirrell is Lord Voldemort._

Harry wants to scream.

When the Dark Lord's crimson gaze connects with his, Harry knows it. He knows that all that time, every secret meeting he had was with his parents murderer.

The man who taught Harry the traditions of the Wizarding World, who patiently resolved his doubts and pointed out the history behind each celebration to give him a glimpse into the larger scheme of things. The man who taught him the behavior of the purebloods and the meaning of every little action they do. The man who gifted him with knowledge and books than Harry would otherwise never have been able to get on his own, not when the people who impart knowledge also censor it before giving it to him. The man who invited him every week to drink the best tea Harry has ever tasted for the simple pleasure of his company. 

_Harry's soulmate is that man._

"Join me, Harry," Voldemort demands. No. Harry can see he's begging. The plea is hidden by his actions: in the wand pointing to the wall behind Harry and beneath the piercing crimson fury that is conforms his gaze.

“I can't” Harry answers. _‘Not when we already are,’_ he doesn't says.

.

Daphne receives a gift.

"A house elf appeared out of nowhere and left a fancy box on your bed," Millicent Buldstrode informs her as she enters the girls' dorms. “You should have seen Parkinson's face. I'm bloody sure that people in Romania heard her screams.”

Inside the box are different objects: An odd-looking watch that she doesn't gives a second look at, a couple of books that Daphne knows are currently banned, a ring with the Malfoy family crest and a photo album.

Outside of the wooden box, 'Abraxas Malfoy' is carved on one of its edges.

There is a separate photograph of the album. It's a group of smiling young people dressed in school uniforms, posing at the castle entrance gates. Most are Slytherin, but there are members from other houses as well. It's not difficult to place Abraxas among the others. His hair is golden in the sunlight and his arm is dangling around a dark-haired boy that everyone at some point in the sequence turns to look reverently. The boy's eyes never leave the camera. 

Daphne turns it over and sees something written on the back:

 **The Knights of Walpurgis.** _September 1943._

“I should send Lucius a thank you note,” Daphne says aloud as she delicately traces the image of her soulmate. It's what a proper lady would do, after all.

.

Harry doesn't talk about what happened the next days. Not to his friends, not to Dumbledore, not to anyone. He just reinforces the spells his soulmate taught him to hide his soulmarks and acts like Quirrell was just a stuttering Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to him, like if over the course of school year he hadn't become a kind of mentor and friend.

He's aware that the few who know his altered version of what happened translate his silence as a response to the trauma that —they suppose— he must have felt after witnessing the escape of his parents murderer with the philosopher's stone without being able to avoid it.

The same stone hidden in a sock inside his trunk, along with all the books his soulmate gave him. Harry keeps them in the deepest place, safe from everyone, and tries to avoid the guilt that settles in his stomach every time he notices Hermione's worried look on him or when Ron puts an arm around his shoulder in the moments that his vision is blurred and his thoughts focus on the man he cannot hate even after trying to do so.

‘What they don't know doesn't hurt them,’ is what Harry thinks to console himself.

"Hedwig, I need you to send a note for me, okay?"

**If you want the stone, come to Privet Drive, Surrey**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He has the look, you know?”
> 
> “What do you mean, Tori?”
> 
> “The 'I'm not wanted' look. Really, I didn't expected The-Boy-Who-Lived to look like that. He remembers me that black cat you fighted father to take care of, all skinny and ugly” Astoria giggles “Want to adopt a human, Daphne?”

**If you want the stone, come to Privet Drive, Surrey.**

Caressing the white owl's side, Lord Voldemort's lips smirk.

.

A week before the Malfoys leave for their vacation in France, Daphne is invited to an informal dinner with the family.

During the evening, Draco expresses how excited he's looking forward to visit his cousins from different family branches. As Lady Narcissa tells the table an anecdote of what happened the last time she had tea with Lady Abbot and Lady Zabini, a house elf appears and announces that Lucius presence is required and that the package must be returned.

The man drinks his wine, a expression of fear wavering barely a millisecond before settling into one of false coldness on his face.

Lady Narcissa looks at the elf, her eyes shining with recognition as her lips curl in a feigned smile. "Tell your lord that my husband will be there." 

The house elf disappears.

"Daphne," the woman says, "I know how abrupt this is but I'm afraid you must retreat. Draco, go to your room. Come, dear, I'll walk you to the fireplace.”

When she returns home, her father's empty office welcomes her.

In the dining room Daphne finds her little sister chewing on a chicken wing. Astoria is barefoot, wearing her pajama nightgown, and there's sauce staining her left cheek when the almost eleven-year-old girl smiles at her. Their mother would have a heart attack if she had found her like this.

Astoria is not surprised to see Daphne, which means that one of her own house elves must have notified her of the arrival.

"I won't tell mother you came back early from the Malfoy's if you don't tell her what you just saw," Astoria assures, giving Daphne a clear look at the food still in her mouth. _Ew._

"Only if you promise not to do it in front of anyone else.”

Astoria's smile grows bigger.

.

**_I request your assistance_ **

The note arrives around seven in the morning wrapped in the beak of an owl in the window. Daphne sighs when she sees the signature, wondering why in Merlin's name her future father-in-law needs the help of a twelve-year-old girl.

.

Harry is sitting on a squeaky wooden bench in the park, questioning his life decisions as he clutches the sock containing the Philosopher's Stone in his hands and tries to avoid the strange glances the ladies of Privet Drive send him.

He barely managed to escape his uncles by lying to them about a supposed project they had been given at Hogwarts as a summer assignment and how he should meet someone from school that day or else a very large and bearded man would come to ensure Harry's well-being. He didn't even have to say Hagrid's name for the Dursleys' faces to turn red, Dudley started screaming his mother's name and they yelled at him that he couldn't come back for the rest of the day.

Now, Harry is in the park, his stomach twisting from the coming confrontation as a soft, graceful, feminine accent says, "The Boy-Who-Lived, you're definetly not what I expected."

The girl sits next to him and Harry tells himself that he's not disappointed. He's obviously not. She has blonde hair loose in waves on her back and her face flickers between surprise and an attempt to remain impassive. Her appearance is familiar, almost as if ...

"You study at Hogwarts."

"I'm Daphne," she introduces herself. The girl doesn't reach out for a squeeze, so Harry doesn't either. “Maybe you remember me for having an argument with your friend last year.”

Oh, she's that girl.

"Did your family...?"

“No. House Greengrass has always been neutral when it comes to You-Know-Who, but a kind of friend enlisted my help in coming in the name of the Dark Lord” she explains. “Least suspicious than a man reuniting with a kid in the middle of a park”

"Are you friends with Voldemort's followers?" Harry questions without thinking.

At the same moment, a lady who lives a few houses from her uncles and who often has tea parties with Petunia scowls at Harry.

Daphne raises an eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

"That boy is a little troublemaker ," she answers, putting in what, Harry knows, is her best voice when she hears Daphne's accent. “His lovely cousin Dudley and my son play together and talk about how unpleasant and strange he is. A young lady like you should be careful about the company your choose.”

"And a courteous lady would know not to judge aloud or in public and would not be a meddle in other people's business.” Daphne's eyes shine with disdain. “Or were you not properly educated in such basic social skills?”

The woman blushes at them, running away without saying another word on the spot.

"To answer your question, I'm not. My friend is kind the exception to the rule.”

"I thought all his followers were caught."

Daphne nods. "Well, I thought the same thing," she admits. “But I also thought you hated the man. Weren't we a little naive, both of us?

“I...”

"You don't have to explain yourself," says the blonde. Her blue eyes linger on the children running around the slides, chasing each other. “My parents never allowed me to do that, did the people who take care of you let you?”

"The kids around here think I'm a freak. And my relatives doesn't... like me too much”

Daphne's nose wrinkles. "Why do you live with them? Non-muggleborn wizarding children are supposed to live and be raised within the Wizarding World, ” she explains. “I know this because my father is a friend of Lady Bones and at the last dinner we had she talked about a halfblood orphan girl and how she was almost sent to live with her muggle grandmother, but her magical godparents would not allow it because the parents had declared in their will that she should stay with them because they wanted her to take be raise in a magical environment. Lady Bones explained that even if the godparents had not met the requirements to become her guardians, the guardianship would have gone to the next existing magical blood relationship.”

"But I'm the last Potter alive."

"From the direct male branch," Daphne agrees, "yes, but there were marriages from other families and the Potter. I'm not sure which families, but I know there must be people who carry your blood. Some second cousin or something.”

Something fluttered in Harry's chest. _Hope._ “Are you sure?”

"I can investigate. I've done all the homework they left us with, anyways, and my bestfriend is going on a trip soon so I'll have plenty of free time. I can write you.”

The corners of Harry's eyes crinkle at the smile that grows on his face. Daphne won't be mad if he hugs her, will she? Hermione and Ron always have some kind of contact when they're around him. He barely knows Daphne though, so that would be strange. But she will also try to get him out of the Dursleys. 

If he's lucky, Harry will get a family, the caregivers Petunia and Vernon have never tried hard to be for him.

Harry hugs her for a few seconds before releasing her.

The girl's cheeks turn crimson. "It's the right thing to do. And ... your friend wouldn't like to know how those muggles treat you, would he?”

Harry doesn't want to think about his soulmate, or what he would do if he knew about the Dursleys. Not when he didn't even dare to come.

“Eh... I don't really know”, he shrugs. Harry hands her the sock. “This is for him.”

Daphne laughs. "You want me to give The Dark Lord a stinky rag?"

"It's not stinky! Look... the important thing is what's inside” he clarifies.

"Right." The blonde hands him a book that Harry hadn't noticed until now. “Apparently this is your early Yule present.”

Harry blinks at the book. It's a dark leather journal with the name 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' embossed in cursive letters around the edge. Why would his soulmate send some boy's diary to Harry? Or is it just a cover for something more... significant?

However, just knowing whose gift it's makes Harry's heart race.

“Uh...I'd should go," he informs and gets up.

Daphne smiles at him as she nods. "Yes," she says and then confesses: "My sister will not be able to distract my mother much longer with her supposed stomach disease so that she does not come near my room."

"Wait, do you have a sister? And if your mother doesn't know you went out, how did you escape?”

"Astoria is a year younger than us and is absolutely amazing. She's always breaking all the rules our mother teach us, to my exasperation, and my parents never see through her act of being a correct lady. She starts her first year at Hogwarts this september,” Daphne says. “And I used the floo network from my father's office to go to my... friend's house, who then brought me here by apparition.”

Harry blinks.

Daphne's eyebrows pinch. 

"Of course no one explained you how wizards transportes," she sighs. “Harry, the floo is pretty easy to understand. ...It's like phones for muggles? It is a network connected to every magical house and we travel through fireplaces. You just have to use some floo powder and say where you're going. You must also be very specific with the address or you get lost. Apparition is what I think muggles meant by teleportation.”

"Nobody ... nobody told me that before."

"This is why magical children who're not muggleborn must grow up within our world," says the witch. “You should know these things, Harry.”

Daphne looks upset, not with him, but with whoever left him to grow up with the Dursleys without resorting to a magical alternative, with the person who kept him away from the Wizarding World for years. 

"I ... Are you really going to help me find some lost relative to take me in?"

Daphne rises from the bench, her golden hair flapping on her back in the wind as she looks at him with a glow of determination.

“Yes”

When Harry returns to the Durslet, the woman Daphne had chased away complains to her aunt and he's locked in his room. With bars.

However, he and Hedwig are not completely alone.

_‘Hello, Harry. My name is Tom’._

.

Lucius raises an eyebrow at the sock she offers him.

"A stinky rag?"

“The important thing is what's inside" says Daphne, offering the same words Harry said when she asked the same question.

"My Lord wants to know if the boy is alright."

Harry at no time admitted the abuse received by his relatives, but she had noticed it in the way the muggle woman talked about him of things that his family spread to the whole neighborhood. She noticed in the wizard's thin wrists and the small size from his body. 

Daphne promised Potter that she would help him, yes, but she's also aware that she won't make much progress in the search for families associated with the Potters if she doesn't have the help of adult people who are able to snoop without problems.

If Lucius knew about Harry's, could he help? Or does Lord Malfoy's kindness to people outside his family only reach Daphne because of her status as his son's fiancée and his late father's soulmate? And what would the Dark Lord do if he knew about Harry's? 

Daphne hesitates. Then she look at the greyish eyes with determination.

"He lives with muggles," she answers. It is not what a correct lady would do. This revealing secrets that don't belong her, but sometimes there must be exceptions when trying to do the right thing. Harry Potter doesn't deserve to be in a place where people consider him a weirdo for what he is. Daphne thinks the way his emerald gaze crystallized in resignation as he heard the chatter of that muggle woman in the park and how much reminded her of Draco and his broken voice the moment he asked Daphne if he deserved to be loved, all those months ago.

Merlin, Daphne knew she couldn't do but trying to help him after seeing that emerald broken eyes. 

She doesn't want that expression on anyone's face

"Muggles who hate magic."

.

Harry has two big secrets in his life and he confesses both of them to Tom.

The information slips easily out of him one day when frustration builds up in Harry, suffocating in the four walls that have become his jail over the summer.

Harry talks about the Dursley's and the cupboard under the stairs. Talks about Hogwarts and his friends. Talks about his soulmate, whom he cannot hate even knowing all the heinous things he has done.

The diary buzzes with interest, and somehow it feels good that Tom is curious about Harry's thoughts. Maybe Voldemort knew what the diary is when he decided to give it to Harry?

 _‘It's okay that you want your soulmate,’_ writes Tom.

The writing that forms under his fingers is elegant and familiar. Harry ignores what his mind is trying to warn him in favor of caressing the curve of every word. 

‘Even when he's a monster?’

 _‘Oh Harry,’_ Tom answers, the shape of his words almost sad. _‘Especially if he's a monster.’_

.

Three redheads and a flying Ford Anglia comes to Harry's rescue one day in the middle of the night.

“Mate?” Ron whispers from his bed, after Mrs. Weasley has reprimanded Ron and the twins for what they did and sent them to their rooms.

Harry makes a sound to tell he's listening.

"You're my best friend," the other boy declares softly. “You were the first who didn't care about the look of my clothes or the name of my family. You wanted to spend time with me even after meeting Draco Malfoy on the train. And Fred and George. And Neville. And Seamus. And Dean Thomas. You chose me as your friend. And I have no idea what you saw, Harry, but I ... " 

Ron's voice breaks and the redhead takes a deep breath before continuing:

“I thought you were skinny and you wore all those giant clothes on the train because your family couldn't afford luxuries like mine either. I didn't understand Harry, I didn't understand until the twins told Dad at breakfast about a boy from their year who comes from a religious family who doesn't treat him well because of his magic and when they talked about him I could only think of you. And your family never sent you letters... Or gifts... Or congratulations on making the Quidditch team... They even didn't wrote mad for getting you in trouble! And that's what the family is supposed to do, they... they get mad and yell because they care. Your family didn't do any of that. And... and when I told the twins, Harry, they understood. They helped me understand.”

Harry looks at him. The moonlight filtering through the window spills onto Ron's tear-stained face. He has eyes as blue as the sky on a sunny day and his eyebrows furrow at the ceiling of his room when he runs a hand over his cheeks and feels the moisture on them.

"Merlin, I'm crying like a gal," he murmurs.

Unable to help himself, Harry giggles. “There's nothing wrong with being a girl, ” he says and crawls up to Ron's side. “Girls can kick our butts, ya' know?”

“Yeah. Hermione can hex us with no sweat”

Harry hugs him. “You're my best friend too, Ronnie.”

Ron huffs and wraps him tightly. "Shut up, Harriet."

The next morning, Molly Weasley finds them huddled in a tangle of arms and legs. ‘Aren't they just lovely?’ she thinks.

“Do. Not. Be. Loud. Ron and Harry are asleep “ she warns her other children at the breakfast table, giving Fred and George a special look. 

She doesn't have the heart to wake them up.

.

Harry hides the diary at the bottom of his trunk, along with the other gifts from his soulmate. He doesn't want to stop writing to Tom, but he also doesn't want anyone to suspect anything during his time with the Weasleys.

The day they go shopping for their school supplies, Harry uses the floo net for the first time and, remembering Daphne Greengrass' warnings the moment she explained how it works, makes sure to pronounce the name of Diagon Alley loud and clear.

There, Harry meets Daphne again.

Harry doesn't see her at first, his attention focused on the discussion that takes place between Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Wesley in the middle of Flourish and Blotts. But she does notice Harry and walks past him to whisper something that sounds like "bath" in his ear before walking on to join a brown-haired girl among the sea of onlookers in the store.

When the fight is over, Harry holds his breath until his cheeks are flushed red and, with an embarrassed expression, he asks the store clerk if there are any bathrooms he can use. The man, recognizing Harry, points him to a place at the back of the store. 

The young wizard somehow manages to get there without much trouble.

"Sorry," Daphne says when she reaches for him, "I didn't wrote."

"I couldn't have read it anyways." he says. “My uncles punished me and I couldn't read any of the mail that Ron and Hermione sent me”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. The Weasley's helped me to escape... Um...I guess you were out of luck?

"Actually," Daphne smiles, "I got something. I could never have found it on my own so I asked help from… my friend.” Seeing the tension in Harry's features, she is quick to add: “He won't say anything to your friend. Not yet.”

"Daphne...

"What he got is big," she interrupts. Then lowers the tone of her voice until Harry must get closer to her so he can hear better. “And very, very good. Your godfather was imprisoned in Azkaban for being a supposed follower of The Dark Lord” the witch looks at him. “Get that expression off your face, Harry, you can't hate him when you're friends with the man yourself.”

Harry splutters and blushes, but is unable to deny anything.

The blonde's smile grows.

"Besides," she continues, "my friend doesn't remember any Sirius Black among the Dark Lord's ranks. In fact, it turns out my friend also knows people within the ministry and, with a little persuasion on his part, managed to get hold of Black's case file. Guess who was sent to prison without trial for the last _twelve_ years?

.

"I never knew you'd fancy celebrities," Astoria says to Daphne when she finds her in the hall of books dedicated to History of Magic. Which can only mean that the younger girl saw her follow Harry Potter to the back of the store.

"I like blondes, if that's what you were asking," Daphne answers. “And Gilderoy Lockhart's bright smile is quite attractive, don't try to deny it, Tori.”

Astoria hums.

"That's not what I meant. But you're right, Lockhart is handsome,” she twists a lock of brown hair around her fingers and gazes at Daphne with that piercing blue gaze identical to her own. “We should go back with the Malfoy's or mom will lose her mind.” Astoria points out, changing the subject.

Daphne lets out a soft sigh of relief, and knows she's caught in the moment her sister gives her a full-toothed smile.

“He has the look, you know?”

“What do you mean, Tori?”

“The 'I'm not wanted' look. Really, I didn't expected The-Boy-Who-Lived to look like that. He remembers me that black cat you fighted father to take care of, all skinny and ugly” Astoria giggles. “Want to adopt a human, Daphne?” 

Blinking, Daphne notices that her sister is right.

_Merlin_

.

Passed a week as a second year at Hogwarts, Harry begins hiding in the same hallway where his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher found him last year. He begins to go to the place at the time he used to attend his meetings with Quirrell, and reads books on subjects that he had become interested in because of him.

It's one of those days when he carry the diary with him.

'Hey,' Harry writes. 'Are u still moody?'

The diary gives no answer. 

‘C'mn, Tom. I explained why couldn't write. Someone might've suspected something.'

The pages absorb the ink, but there is no response from Tom.

Suddenly, the diary starts to glow brightly and Harry is sucked into a burst of golden light. When he opens his eyes, his gaze connects with a face similar to that of those carved stone sculptures that Harry came to see in books during his primary years. Dark curly hair and eyes like the sky in a storm, the darkest blue he has ever seen sprinkled with shades of gray. He's a young wizard in school robes with the shield of snakes on his left side.

They both lie in his bed, on the silver sheets that only Slytherin rooms can recreate.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Harry." His voice is soft as the sheets beneath him. And it sounds so familiar ...

But Harry can't think.

“Y-you...you're very handsome” he lets out like some kind of idiot.

Harry blushes. 

Tom lips curve into a delighted smirk. "Always saying things I don't expect, Harry, aren't you quite adorable?"

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," the boy replies, looking around the room decorated in green and gray, full of books on different shelves. “But it offends me. A lot.”

There is a special book that catches his eye, on Tom's nightstand, implying that it's his most recent reading. The author's last name is Egorov.

By Merlin's skirts, Harry thinks.

"Ah, yes, vampires are a subject that fascinates me," Tom says, seeing where Harry's gaze is directed. “Their mortality. Or the lack of it to be specific, is so interesting.”

"You're Voldemort," the words leave Harry in a whisper, surprise dripping as his breath catches in his throat.

He can't see Tom's face, his gaze still fixed on the book. The same one that hides in his trunk back in his bedroom and away from the diary. The one that Harry keeps with more jealously than the others, not for its content but due to it's sentimental value as it's the reason for his approach to his soulmate in the first place place.

Tom's hands take his. They're pale and cold, curving soflty on Harry's own hands. 

And Harry lets him do it.

“Let me tell you a story"

This is the true image of his soulmate, what he was before... before being presunted dead. This and not that little humanoid being that Harry helped at the end of his first year, and from whose long conversations through someone else's face he was delighted. They are the same person, of course, but it's the boy's image in front of him the one of the other half of his soul. 

"Do it," he demands. And Tom does.

The diary shows him a story. The story of a scared and lonely boy in a dirty orphanage at a time when many things were considered unnatural, and he especially. The story of a name, a title that, Tom did not know, would be feared by every one of the magicians of Great Britain, born of the desire of a boy in a world to which his blood status did not allow him to fully belong.

The story of a child whose worst fear is death.

.

_"Harry,_

_My friend already got a willing lawyer. He won't be able to prevent the case from being open to the public, but he said he will be able to help on his behalf. It can serve to incite the population to empathize with the Prisoner's situation and we both know what an angry public implies."_

Harry gets Daphne's note in his potions book. The witch must have placed there during Snape's class, when she sat next to him for the entire period, arriving at his side before Ron, and devoted herself to working on his potion without giving him more than a "Potter" greeting. 

The potion turned out to be near perfect, and Draco Malfoy did not attempt to sabotage its work at any point.

It was bloody weird.

He couldn't read the note all day, accompanied by Ron and Hermione, so now Harry's in his usual hall of the library. He picks up one of the books from the section he marked and begins to read it. After a while, he throws a tempus and curses when he sees the time.

Soon it would be dinner. Picking up his books thrown around, Harry leaves the place without noticing the eyes that follows him from the corner of the opposite shelf nor the diary that rests calmly on the stone floor.

.

Harry can't find the diary. _Harry can't find the diary._ **Harry can't find the diary.**

He's freaking out.

And Tom is going to be so mad.

.

The next day, Mrs. Norris is petrified. And the enemies of the Heir must beware.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why did you open the Chamber, Tom?” Harry asks him.
> 
> "I thought you would understand," he answers. His gaze falls on Ginny's unconscious body. His voice becomes three tones colder as he says, "Did you know she's terribly in love with you? It's unfortunate, how she sighed and sighed about her great Harry Potter. Did you come to save her?”
> 
> “Why, are you jealous?”
> 
> Tom doesn't look at him. "And why would I?"

Ginny's wakes up by the wetness of her robes.

The curtains around her bed are barely closed, a shaft of light passing through them, and her face contorts in a gasp at the scene surrounding her. Soft feathers soaked in blood, painting her hands, adorning her sheets. And the diary —pristine of the violent crimson in which it's found— is open showing the guilt of it's actions.

With shaking hands, she turns a page. And the other. And then another, and another, and another.

“Merlin, what have I done?” she whispers, her voice shaking as much as the rest of her childlike body.

There, in hate-filled scarlet letters, is the proof of her mistake in crossing the line between normal and insane in her little crush on Harry Potter.

Every page in the diary is a bloodbath screaming: _**THIEF.**_

.

Hogwarts is a cauldron whose main ingredient for the potion it prepares, in addition to magic, are gossip.

And whispered person-to-person rumors chase Harry through its hallways. He's a Parseltongue, and many are convinced that is all proof needed to declares him the Heir of Slytherin.

This experience, he will reflect long later, is what causes him to learn that people are easily influenced. How they want to be his friends when is conveniet for them and how they're able to outcast him when he doesn't reflects the image they have painted about him.

"I bet it's Malfoy," Ron tells Harry on one particular day.

But he knows better. The diary is somewhere in the castle and the true heir of the serpents.

Harry just has to find it.

.

During breakfast, all the newspapers and magazines explode in small crises by the new information that is given to the public.

"Harry Potter, you have to come with me," Hermione says, several newspapers under her arm and a concerned look on her face.

People in the Great Hall murmurs and point in his direction while in the Professors Podium the teachers are having mixed reactions. When Harry glances at the Slytherin table, the calmest and most normal of all, Daphne gives him a small toothless smile that she hides behind her pumpkin juice.

Harry nods to her and follows his friend through the hallways. When they get to the second floor girls' lavatory, Ron is there waiting for them. Hermione hands Harry the newspapers. He takes one of the copies, which happens to have been published by the Daily Prophet.

**SIRIUS BLACK IN AZKABAN WITHOUT A TRIAL? THE STORY OF BLACK'S MISDEED AGAINST THE POTTER FAMILY AND THE MAGICAL WORLD**

And below, a copy of The Quibler says:

**SIRIUS BLACK IS INNOCENT AND WE'LL TELL YOU WHY**

Harry studies the title, promising to get a copy of his own to read later, and moves to the next.

**DEATH EATERS DON'T DESERVE MERCY AND SIRIUS BLACK NEITHER!**

**REASONS WHY BLACK'S TRIAL IS A DARK FAMILIES CAMPAIGN FOR POWER**

Harry stops reading.

“Are you alright?”

He nods.

"Do you know we're here for you, don't you mate?"

Hermione takes his hands. "You'll see that everything will be resolved, Harry. Everyone says Black is guilty, he won't win.”

Harry walks away so fast that he almost trips. "How can you say that, Hermione? He never had a trial!

"But they say he was a follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." The witch's brow furrows, confusion flooding the brown of her gaze. “His right hand!”

But was he really? Daphne's friend is one and she never knew about Sirius. For Harry, that's enough to warrant the service of the doubt.

"And people also thinks that I'm Slytherin's Heir! Am I?” The brunette shakes her head. ”You don't have to believe everything you hear, Hermione.”

Ron sighs and stands in the middle of the two. He is channeling —Harry notices — a perfect match between Arthur Weasley's fatherly understanding and Molly's voice wrapped in motherly scolding.

"Guys, stop! Harry, Hermione was just trying to help. She didn't know that you think Black is innocent and she only said what she thought you wanted to hear. She was just trying to support you. Hermione, maybe just because McGonagall or some books on the history of the Wizarding World say Black is guilty doesn't mean it's true. Harry's right. I'm not saying that Black is innocent, I'm saying that until the man has a trial you guys are not fighting about it, okay?”

"Yes, mom," Harry and Hermione say in unison.

They look at each other.

"I'm sorry! I spoke without thinking."

“No! You were being a good friend and I was the one being grumpy about it.”

"Why don't we start again?"

"Okay," 

Then Hermione says: “Black's attorney will probably kick all those newspapers' butts on libel charges if he turns out to be innocent.”

Harry smiles at her.

.

Crabbe and Goyle have been quiet for a while, their attention focused on the new topic in The Daily Prophet. Draco frowns as they study the image of Sirius Black on the cover and demands that they return it to him immediately.

"Sirius Black?" Astoria questions with a soft smile on her face, not paying attention to the poisonous look the blond sends her.

Pansy, next to the first-year witch, turns to Draco, her own copy of the newspaper in her hands. "Isn't he a relative of yours? He murdered thirteen Muggles and sold the Potter's to the Dark Lord”

"On my mother's side." Draco looks at his small group as if he's challenging everyone to say something else. “And he never had a trial or was officially removed from the Black Family, which is why he's still the Head of House of one of the most noble and ancient families” he adds coldly.

Everyone, including the other students at the Slytherin table who hear the conversation, known that's the end of the topic.

Most are sons and daugthers of pureblood families, and they understand what it would mean to speak ill against the Head of another family, especially one like the Blacks. They're part of the Sacred Twenty-eight and their lineage extends almost to the beginning of the Wizard's World.

There are traditions and rules that no pureblood family allows itself to forget. The Black House is highlight based on the darkness that conforms them, and the curses that run through their name are an open secret in all circles of pureblood society. 

No one is foolish enough to attempt to taint the name of a Head of House, much less a member of the Black's. So as the bustle of the other tables in the Great Hall grows, the snakes talk about student gossip and homework, acting as if the Wizarding World hadn't been shaken by the news of the trial of the most famous criminal.

And Daphne Greengrass looks at them all and grins behind her drink, for she knows when the day comes, the Prisoner of Azkaban will be free.

.

Far from Hogwarts, Remus Lupin smiles sadly as he looks the newspaper in his hands.

He takes a sip of his tea, trying not to think about Sirius Black.

He does it anyways.

To Remus, Sirius was always a force of nature. An unstoppable kind of loyalty and emotional support like no other. When his friends discovered Remus' werewolf status, it was Sirius who pressed himself the most against him, took his face in his hands and told him that he was being an idiot. An idiot for assuming he would hate him just for being who he is.

Looking at various articles promoting theories of Sirius's innocence, he remembers his friend's voice, the soft calluses of his fingers on his cheek, saying:

"You're an idiot, Moony"

Sirius, with his thunderous laugh and mocking looks that would always soften at the sight of Remus, loved him.

Sirius, to Remus, was always the best friend he could have wished for, even if Remus was never a best friend to him.

Sirius loved Remus. And Remus still failed him.

Putting down the cup and the newspaper, Remus rummages through his things until he finds a box that he has kept for a very long time. Inside, letters he has written to Sirius since that fateful October night in 1981 lie waiting to be sent.

Beneath them are various photos of the Marauders throughout their school years.

One photography in particular is frayed around the edges, fingerprints on the face of a young Sirius Black, who in the photo is smiling with each arm wrapping around the shoulders of the youngers Peter Pettigrew and James Potter. The Remus in the photo looks at him with an expression of love so bright in his amber eyes that he squeezes his chest. Sirius doesn't look back at him, busy winking a grayish eye at the person behind the camera.

Marlene Mackinnon had taken that photograph.

Remus's gaze in the photo follows Sirius's action, and his face transforms as a smile of sad resignation encompasses him. His face moves back to the camera just at the same time Sirius's eyes stray to the Remus in the photo and his mischievous, flirtatious smile turns a little sweeter at the sight of the werewolf. That is the end of the sequence.

That had been the day the building of something else between the two boys had begun, when Sirius had looked at the photo and noticed for the first time his feelings for Remus were reciprocated. Then the war came into their lives and nothing they had started had a chance to continue.

Remus puts the photos back, his gaze lingers for a second too long on the little box next to the photo album, the one that holds a particular jewel more valuable than everything he owns. One that he had never been able to get rid of. Not when Sirius never had a chance to find out what it contained.

Remus takes his quill and a piece of parchment.

Maybe it's time those letters got to the person he wrote them for in the first place.

.

A dark owl arrives with a letter in its beak for Harry during the night, when none of his roommates are awake. Paper is expensive, and the handwriting, despite looking hastily written, is elegant in each of its lines and circles.

Is signed by Padfoot, someone who claims to have been a close friend of his parents and to have been deeply affected by their deaths. Padfoot also asks Harry for the opportunity to meet him through the mail and the boy has no doubt about his true identity.

_‘Dear Padfoot,_

_I know who you are. And I would like to know more about you’_

Harry looks at the words for a minute before adding: _'I think, to make our possible future interactions more enjoyable, we should try to exchange information about both of us through letters ... So what's your favorite Quidditch team?'_

Most of the last paragraph are fancy words that could be read like something Daphne would say to sound like a lady of her name, and since the man is the member of an Ancient and Noble House, it needs to sound less like Harry and more like. .. someone from Slytherin would.

Sending the owl flying through the night, the boy nods to himself. Quidditch is a sure way to meet someone. Surely there will be no problems with Sirius.

Of course, Harry doesn't expect to receive a new racing broom a week after that.

"Mate," Ron whistles at the Nimbus 2001 resting on Harry's bed when they get to his bedroom. “Am I sleepin'?”

Harry's eyes are bright. “Not a dream, Ron”

.

He's ethereal. 

When she was a little girl her mother told her stories of knights and dragons, of little children chosen with the wonderful purpose of defeating dark wizards and rescuing the world from their malevolence, all to later find their happiness from the sweet smiles of princesses.

She used to practice her smiles in front of a mirror, small moments in solitude, away from the constant presence of her older brothers, making herself believe that one day her smiles would be sweet enough for the Boy-Who-Lived to think that she — with splinters nails and clothes that denote her poverty — far from being remotely resembling a quiet princess, might be enough to get his love and attention.

"Oh, Ginevra," he hisses into her ear, the poisonous breath petrifying her body at the brush against her skin, shivering her in dread. “Did mommy forgot to tell you should never lower yourself for someone who will only love you through lies?”

He's not a knight. And he's not a heroe.

He wields the darkness with iron fists squeezing her soul, each beatific smile bright enough to make her look away from the venom that adorns his evil-lit eyes. His face seems kissed by the light, his cheeks evoking the feeelings that muggles use to describe their angels.

He's a monster.

And she still allows his words full of promise to wrap her into the pale, cold hands and let him use her to his advantage.

"Sometimes heroes don't want princesses, Ginevra." Amid the reflection of the water sliding down the dirty chamber, he looks pristine. His ethereal form smiles at her, pure teeth and no compassion. “Do you know why?”

“Cause' they prefer princes?” Ginny's voice doesn't tremble, her eyes burning his helplessly. However, her body's still unable to hold down the fear that churns her rib cage.

He laughs, a sound that could rival the mesmerizing grace that surrounds the veelas and seduces anyone unprepared for its power, an addictive sound that draws people with its charm. It's the sound that will haunt Ginny Weasley's nightmares for years.

"Oh, Ginevra, of course. But some heroes are destined for greater things than childish tales. Some are fated for those whose powers are superior to anyone else, those whose powers can rivalize with the supposed gods.” A translucent finger moves to brush the red hair with a frown of utter disgust forming on the beautiful face at the sight of her. “Those like me” he hiss.

Perhaps that is her price to pay for wanting to become the princess of a story she's not destined to belong.

Not when he will be the one to get the golden boy's heart. 

Not when Tom Marvolo Riddle will bring down everyone who stands in his thoughts of twisted love.

.

Colin Creevey is petrified.

And Hermione Granger after him.

.

Tom's dark curls move on his forehead as he tilts his head in a way that makes Harry want to check how soft they are.

However, saving Ginny is over his wishes.

“Why did you open the Chamber, Tom?” Harry asks him.

"I thought you would understand," he answers. His gaze falls on Ginny's unconscious body. His voice becomes three tones colder as he says, "Did you know she's terribly in love with you? It's unfortunate, how she sighed and sighed about her great Harry Potter. Did you come to save her?”

“Why, are you jealous?”

Tom doesn't look at him. "And why would I?"

"I think its cute," Harry claims. He actually does, when Ginny isn't being the stalker version of herself. “She's just having a crush with the Boy-Who-Lived. She'll get over it.”

Harry sees Tom's knuckles turn white in his own grip, a mocking snap leaving the older boy's lips. 

“I don't think you'll find cute to know how she borrowed one of your cousin's old shirts and now keeps it tucked away in her trunk.”

What?

"Isn't that so cute? How she dress at night in one of the garments from her great Harry Potter, something that no girl other than her has the opportunity? Harry's obviously much willing to be together if Harry hasn't asked for the shirt back! Obviously The-Boy-Who-Lived wants her to wear her disgusting muggle cousin's clothes if he hasn't told her anything!” Tom's voice grows higher and higher as his words advance.

Harry looks at Ginny's body, had she really ...? Merlin. Harry flinches.

"Why did you open the Chamber?" The boy repeats, trying to get his thoughts away from ... Ginny. “Is because you don't like muggles? Do you want the castle clean of the dirt of their blood?” Harry questions, grimacing at the dismissive words. “Then neither of us can be here either, Tom! We're both halfbloods!”

"I thought you'd understand, considering the ... similarity in our muggle experiences," Tom expresses, his blue-gray gaze on Harry's face for the first time since their conversation began. His eyes are dark. “You obviously don't. But you will. I'll make you understand”

From there, everything gets out of control.

Tom sends the basilisk on Harry, with orders to stop him and be careful not to kill him. After all, the immediate death to be fulfilled will be the unconscious body of Ginny Weasley.

Harry fights the basilisk. He barely manages to defeat him, with the help of Fawkes and the sword of Gryffindor. But Harry's legs weaken and his eyesight clouds as heat spreads from where the basilisk's tusk burrows into his skin.

Harry pulls out the tusk as Tom Riddle's arms wraps around him.

"No," his soulmate whispers. His eyes, for the first time since Harry has seen him, are scared. “I never planned this. It's not what I wanted ... to hurt you.”

“Tom...”

"This is your fault! You were supposed to support me! Not saving that ... bloody girl!” The words are vicious, but Tom Riddle's voice is full of fear when he speaks them. “No ... You can't die! You can't leave me! You can't… ” Tom takes Harry's wand and begins to whisper spells over the wound, almost frantically.

It stays the same. 

They look at each other. “Harry ...”

At the same time, Fawkes fly ovee their heads, thick tears sliding down his feathers and falling into the boy's open wound, a golden pool beginning to form over the spot.

And then there is nothing to heal.

"Phoenix tears," Tom whispers, his hands caressing the spot where the basilisk bit him. He laughs, hysteria and relief mixing his voice. “I forgot their tears have healing properties.”

Harry stands up, carefully, and looks at the face of his soulmate, the wrinkled hair, the lines of concern on his forehead and the relief in his gaze. He seems remorseful, but Harry can only think of the pain that has sustained his chest since the moment his soulmate gave the basilisk the order to stop him.

The phoenix flies up and picks up the diary, dropping it into Harry's hands.

"You still hurt me, Tom," he accuses, voice cracking near the end of the sentence. 

Harry closes the diary. His emerald eyes reflect how betrayed he feels by Tom and his gaze slides towards the phoenix that flies up to the entrance, paying no attention to them. 

'You were supposed to support me,' Tom had said. But how would Harry have looked into the face of Mrs. Weasley, who offered him shelter and kindness, knowing that he could have saved the life of ... his daughter? How would he have looked at Ron or the twins?

"Dumbledore will want to know what happened, and if I give him the diary... 

“No!”

“...I don't want him to destroy you."

Tom seems to contain a shudder at the thought of being destroyed by the hands of Albus Dumbledore. "You can hide it behind the statue. It's a passageway that leads to the secondary chamber” he points out immediately.

Harry licks his dry lips, and does like the other says.

"Harry?" The boy lifts his head as Tom Riddle buries his fingers into the his cheeks, the movement paralyzing Harry and keeping him focused on the other's face. “My plans may not have gone according to my calculations” Tom's fingers move across his face, gently stroking each patch of skin “... but remember that we're both destined to greater thing, my soul. You're mine and you can't hide from me”

With that, the other disappears into the diary. Because, of course Tom Marvolo Riddle always has the last word in everything.

Harry snorts at — he assumes — is Tom's way of saying: _I was wrong and jealous of an eleven-year-old child. I'm sorry._

Doesn't matter. It's not like it makes Harry's anger go right away.

At some point, Ginny wakes up and starts crying, body shaking.

Harry thinks about what Tom told him and is unable to hide his shudder.

"I tried to tell you guys at breakfast," she says, looking from Harry's bloodstained robes to the basilisk's body and back, "But with Percy so close I wasn't able to. It was me, Harry. I swear I didn't want to. Riddle forced me, he…” the girl looks around. “How did you kill him? Where is the diary? The last thing I remember was Riddle getting out of it”

"Now everything will be fine. I stabbed him with the fang, ” Harry lies, pointing to the bloody tooth just a few steps away from them. “It vanished into powder.”

The lie is easy when it leaves his lips, and it becomes almost a truth when he repeats it to those present in McGonagall's office and everyone seems to believe his edited version of events. 

Even Professor Dumbledore, with glowing eyes behind his half-moon glasses, believes Harry.

"The diary," Ginny explains between sobs. “It was the diary's fault. I've been writing on it for months and it answered me.”

“Ginny!” Mr. Weasley looks stunned. ”What have I told you about trusting objects that seem to think for themselves but you don't know where their brain comes from? Something so suspicious had to be dark magic! Why didn't you tell me or your mother? Where did you get it from?”

Tears form in Ginny's eyes, and little hiccups start to leak from her lips as she says, "I stole it." She doesn't look at Harry, but her eyes almost stop at him as her gaze dart across the room before finishing in soil. 

"GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY," exclaims the Weasley matriarch. 

Ginny lets out another sob.

Arthur, on the other hand, can't seem to decide between sending a disappointed or surprised look in response to his daughter's actions.

“Now, miss Weasley must go to the infirmary. The poor girl had a very terrible experience, ”Dumbledore interrupts, his voice calm. “There will be no punishment. Rest in bed and some hot chocolate is what she needs. Minerva, let the kitchens know we're having a feast tonight”

He then proceeds to award two hundred points to both Ron and Harry and assure them that they will get Special Awards for Services to the School.

When Harry looks back on how Dumbledore dismissed Ginny's admission of stealing the book that later endangered the lives of Hogwarts students, even if said book was brought by Harry in the first place, he will begin to notice that Headmaster Dumbledore is more predisposed to awarding Gryffindor's extra points compared to other houses.

None of this goes through Harry's head until the moment he tells Daphne Greengrass what had really happened in the Chamber that day.

Daphne founds him in his secluded hallway in the library in one of free hours after the defense classes are canceled, her face is serene but Harry senses the girl's concern after having heard from her Death Eater friend —who overheard from the headmaster himself — that Harry had destroyed the gift the Dark Lord had sent him last summer.

"What would Dumbledore have done if had been a Slytherin controlled by the diary?" Daphne questions after Harry finishes the story of the House points, her mask of neutral politeness almost flawlessly on except for the little curl of displeasure at the corner of her lips.

Harry doesn't say anything.

They both know the answer to the question.

.

Harry adds all the repellent and blocking spells he can onto his trunk after recalling the conversation he had with Tom in the Chamber about Ginny.

He asks Hermione to help him find spells together that will keep people from trying to mess with his things.

Hermione, is instantly excited. "Harry, you finally listen to me about practicing your spells!" I've been telling you guys for months, you need to be more diligent! You're lucky the exams were dismissed this year or you would have had a lot of trouble ...

"But mate, then I won't be able to get your candy's when you're not there!" Ron complains.

Harry's fingers twitch at the redhead's words. Did he just say ...?

"Sorry mate," Harry responds, hiding the feeling of confusion. He didn't even know that Ron touched his things. What if he took any of the books? Harry's mind begins to run through all the possibilities. What if he tells Hermione the name of a book and discovers that they are forbidden? What if he tells Dumbledore? “I guess now you have to ask me from now on.”

.

Sirius Black's trial day arrives and the man is found not guilty of all charges. 

However, he is sent to St. Mungos to be checked for his mental health and, until medical reports are issued qualifying him for the job of caring a teenager after being confined for eleven years in Azkaban, he will not be able to be the legal guardian of his godson, Harry Potter, until two years of psychiatric review have passed.

Peter Pettigrew becomes the man most wanted by aurors in all of Britain.

A test with Veritaserum, and the Wizarding World implodes in people demanding justice. The Ministry must pay an amount equivalent to Black's years in prison and an agreement is signed in which both parties will do their best to keep their views on the other away from the clutches of scandal-hungry journalists for a period of one year until the bad press that could affect the reboot of Black in the pureblood society and the little stability that remains in the Ministry disappears because of a media inquisition.

And somewhere in Hogwarts, a rat lets out a screech.

.

Harry returns to the second floor girls' lavatory at some point in the days after to pick up his soulmate's diary. He stares at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets for a long time after exiting, Moaning Myrtle floating behind him.

"What can you tell me about Tom Riddle?" he asks her.

Myrtle floats up to him, her expression closed for the first time. “I hate him”

The words sting on Harry's shoulder, and he has no qualms about stroking them over his clothes. Myrtle, the Ravenclaw that she is, figures it out instantly.

"He didn't really want to hurt you. It was an accident,” Harry mutters, and knows that although the words are directed to himself and the disaster that was their confrontation in the Chamber, Myrtle takes it as his attempt to excuse the actions of the person responsible for her death. “He was just scared.”

Toilets begin to burst throughout the lavatory. The doors shaking as Moaning Myrtle's face turns in disgust.

"Get out of here, Harry Potter!" she squeals. “Out! Out! Never come back!”

Harry does it.

.

In the last week of the school period, the second years must meet with their Heads of House to choose the elective subjects they will want to study. Minerva McGonagall has taken it upon herself to analyze her students, so she knows without being told the children's choices before the day of the meeting.

To her pride, her best student, Hermione Granger, claims that she wants to be the best prepared and study all the electives she can, Minerva is in charge of asking Albus a way to help the girl with her goals, a kind of special treatment that If it had come from any other teacher even they would not have allowed it to happen.

When Ron Weasley drags Harry Potter into the meeting that should be held individually — in which it should be discussed separately for which field is required what grades in the subjects to choose and how the choice would affect a student's attempt to specialize in certain fields — Minerva lets it pass and allows Weasley to vocalize the choice of both.

"We will take Divination and Care of Magical Creatures," the redhead affirms. “No complicated subjects, right, mate?”

Harry Potter has an indecipherable look on his face but Minerva ignores it in favor of replying, "Then you are dismissed."

In the days that follow, Potter walks by her office to request an addition to his electives: Ancient Runes.

Minerva looks at him, his gaze uncomfortable and lips pressed firmly.

"Mr. Potter, are you aware of the work and difficulty involved in Study of Ancient Runes?"

"Yes." The boy tightens his lips, looking at the floor.

"And do you think you'll be able to keep up with the rest of your fellow students?"

James Potter had also added the elective to his study plan in his time, and quickly dropped it when he noticed that it didn't let him time for his jokes around the school.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall says, interrupting any response that came from the boy's lips, "Let's not waste time. If you'd wanted to pursue this elective then you would have said so at our last meeting.”

Harry Potter was almost a carbon copy of his father, and if Minerva knew better, history would probably repeat itself if she decided to fulfill the boy's wishes.

It's not like something was lost. After all, what use would Ancient Runes be for in the boy's future Auror career?

.

On the last day before the end of school term at Hogwarts, Daphne walks beside him and passes him a note without even looking at him. Harry keeps it in his pocket, taking care that neither Ron nor Hermione notice anything.

_Meet me in the library after lunch_

There are few people in the library that day, so it's easy to spot Daphne at the end of a table reading a spell book in one of the sections farthest from Madame Pince's ears and eyes. She is a full table away from another boy of her year, also in Slytherin, who doesn't even look up from his Transfiguration book when Harry walks by.

“Hey”

Daphne looks at him. "Hi," she puts the book down as he sits next to her with one of the books his soulmate had given him last year. For a moment, she stares at the book in her hands. Then says, "I'll understand if you bother with me."

“Wait what?”

She closes her book. "I promised I would get someone who could get you away from ... those muggles. I was naive enough not to think about the fact that Sirius Black spent years exposed to dementors and that would involve years of therapy before he was eligible to even be considered for your custody.”

Harry places a hand on her shoulder. "Daphne, I'm not mad at you for anything. You managed to get an innocent man released from prison. My godfather, who can get me out of the Dursleys if he recovers. I prefer to live the next two summers knowing that everything to follow I'll be finally away from them.” 

She looks at him with an expression that Harry can't understand, the flame of something dancing in her gaze before the fire goes out and is replaced by the same neutral gaze she always uses. Harry figures it must be a good thing when the blonde gives him a small smile before nodding.

"You're much more than I would expect of anyone, Harry Potter. If I had been in your place I would have made sure that the person who broke their word swallowed its tongue to pieces” she admits, reopening her book and letting out a small laugh when the child looks at her in horror at the mental image. “All the people I know would do almost exactly the same thing.”

"That's ... much more like how I think a Slytherin would react, I guess."

"Yeah, but I have Hufflepuff friends."

Harry blinks.

"I don't wanna know," he decides.

She grins.

At some point, Daphne says, “Did you know that runes book is frowned upon Great Britain? It was banned for a time, I think, until a reissue allowed it to be legal again. However, I think your version is one of the forbidden ones.”

“How do you know that?”

"My father has one of the original copies too. It's his favourite.” 

"Oh. It makes sense since this was a gift from Tom.”

“Tom?” At Harry's uneasy gaze, she nods softly. “I get it. Anyway, will you take Ancient Runes as an elective? I've heard that the teacher is decent in her classes.”

"Well, Ron insists that we take Divination and Care for Magical Creatures together because apparently they are easier. But I've been hoping to study runes since first year.”

Harry hesitates for a moment before continuing, sighing. "Ron assured McGonagall that I will take the same electives as him. And when I spoke to McGonagall alone about taking Runes she apparently had doubts that I wouldn't be able to keep with class. She said no.”

“She did what?” Daphne exclaims, her eyebrows pinched in annoyance.

The person closest to their table, the Slytherin boy, raises an eyebrow at them. He even low-key does a double take of Harry's presence.

"Is he bothering you, Greengrass?"

The girl seems as upset as the time she found out that Harry didn't even knew the wizard's means of transportation. She takes a deep breath, studies the boy's faces for a few moments and gestures for him to come over to the table.

"Heir Potter of the Noble House of Potter, I formally introduce you to Blaise Zabini, second son of House Zabini."

For a second, Harry chokes with shock.

His soulmate had taught him the rituals of pureblood etiquette, but that doesn't mean he's ready to be introduced as Heir to a Noble House. Merlin, do the Potters have titles? How had told Harry about it until now?

Perhaps his surprise shows, because Daphne studies him before pursing her lips silently, a look in her eyes towards Harry that says, I'll explain.

Zabini raises an eyebrow at Daphne, but nods at Harry. "My pleasure, Heir Potter."

"Likewise, Mr. Zabini."

The moment Harry speaks the words, the allure of formality is broken and Daphne pulls Zabini into a chair. It's the first time Harry has seen her act so ... normal.

"Can you believe that McGonagall forbade Harry from studying the elective he wanted?" How is it possible that a Head of House, the Deputy Director of the School, prohibits students from education? The education! Blaise, we have to do something! ”He whispers. Her words are low and quiet, despite the speed with which she utters them, so low that Harry leans closer to her to hear better, but the passion in her words is evident.

Daphne Greengrass is angry.

Zabini's lips meet in disgust. ”....Fine. How exactly do I get involved in all of this?”

"You want to become a teacher," she points out. “One who wants to fight against the educational oppression and discrimination that plagues Hogwarts since its founding. Or is it not true that you almost turned down Hogwarts attendance because all your other relatives had their invitation turned down because they belonged to an ancient line of vampires? I know foar fact that if the Malfoys did not belong to the Board and did not have as much political power as they have for centuries, the family would'nt have been able to attend school”

This time, Harry is able to contain his surprise at the new discovery about Zabini; however, said surprise is not as much as discovering that magical creatures are not allowed to study at Hogwarts.

Certain kinds of creatures, to be specific.

”There are many reasons why most members of my family go to school in France.” he rectifies, giving a dark look to Daphne.

Sirius Black had told Harry the story of Remus Lupin, the only werewolf to attend Hogwarts because of Dumbledore's kindness.

“And since when are thirteen-year-olds listened to when it comes to educational oppression?

“I'm twelve” Harry says, but Zabini still looks at Daphne.

“Maybe they'll pretend to pay attention to Potter, but us? Dumbledore will have us out of the school before we even think about carrying the situation out to the Board of Governors.”

Harry has the fleeting thought of getting up and fighting on Dumbledore's behalf. But that is strange? Harry dismisses the feeling. Yes, Dumbledore is himself considered the greatest wizard after Merlin by some, but that is the man who will allowed Harry's soulmate enter Hogwarts and the Basilisk escape the Chamber of Secrets. Had it not been for a lengthy conversation with his Defense teacher last year, Harry would never have discovered that the castle guards should not have allowed the Troll to enter their first year, not if the headmaster had been fully responsible for the guards.

Dumbledore is a great wizard. He's also human like any other and can make mistakes.

"He's right, Daphne," Harry says. ”If McGonagall doesn't want me to study Runes for some reason, then that means Dumbledore probably wants the same.”

Daphne looks at him. "Harry, what she's doing isn't right. What if your dream career is to be a curse-breaker? You would need O's in Runes and Arithmancy. Or if you want to be a Rune Master?” 

"You can always take the exams at the Ministry. Although you would need a specialized tutor.” Zabini adds. 

"Can we take our exams at the Min...?" Harry cuts off his words when he sees how annoyance crosses Daphne's gaze again and Zabini gives him a weird look.

Merlin, Harry was unaware of so many things about the wizarding world. Even his soulmate forgot to tell him about the Ministry exams, focusing more on pureblood traditions and specific subjects like ancient runes.

“Hogwarts only offers twelve exams over the seven years of education. In the Ministry you must pay to take these exams and if you fail you cannot repeat until after four years. However, the Ministry offers exams for subjects that have long been dropped from the Hogwarts curriculum such as Dueling or Alchemy.” 

Zabini looks at his nails, almost bored. 

"The quality of education in the country has declined in recent decades," Zabini continued. “The repression of magical education to members of species such as vampires, centaurs, veelas or fae have grown at the same time that discrimination against the mentioned species has increased on a daily basis in our society. That is why I plan to become a teacher and, one day, be able to change the system from within, to ensure a better future for those who have been denied it in the past for being different.”

"I hope, Zabini, that you achieve your ambitions." Harry says. Is what a Slytherin would say, right? All the support thing?

He looks at Daphne, but her gaze is brightly on Zaibini's dark eyes. 

The boy cocks his head and smiles at Harry in recognition.

“Mmh, do you offer me your support, Heir Potter?” His voice becomes a little more honeyed, and Harry can see how they went from three children talking about rebelling against their authority to three members of Noble Houses plunging into the waters of how much the other can help their own ambitions.

"With plans as interesting as yours? Consider me your biggest fan right now, Mr. Zabini.” And Harry is pretty sure this words will come to bite his butt in the future. But he likes Zabini's ambitions.

Daphne looks at them both, studying them until she seems to find what she was looking for in their expressions. For a few seconds, her smile becomes more cocky than usual until is again as sweet and neutral as she wants it to be.

She didn't expect things to happen this way when she made the impulsive decision to invite Zabini, but she can see how the seeds for a new future are beginning to be planted in the minds of this little new childish alliance.

"... So Potter, how about you try to get a tutor for Ancient Runes and take the test directly at the Ministry?"

.

She is left with Harry alone at some point in the next hour.

"Harry? I realized that you weren't aware of your title as future Lord of the House Potter?

Daphne kept her face impassive, but on the inside she's trying to stay calm for not remembering that the boy's only friends with blood traitors Weasleys who would not think to explain to the muggle-raised wizard the existence of his title.

He denies with the head. "I think we have a lot to talk about."

And what a long conversation will be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ginny: _*breath*_  
>  Tom: I'm gonna end this woman whole career ***death stares intensifies***
> 
> Btw, this is not a bashing fic and McGonagall just meant good for Harry. About Ginny, Tom is a jealous boi and dear Harry just called Ginny 'cute', so he wasn't being too honest about the shirt bit... Was he? We'd never know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're not the only one with such plans," Lord Malfoy is saying. “We don't know the boy's intentions yet.”
> 
> "I wish I had taught those Muggles a lesson," he listens to Sirius, his voice as low as a growl. “The things I would have done to them for treating my kiddo like that.”
> 
> Harry realizes that they are looking at his cupboard, the evidence of which someone used it for years remains intact. _Oh shi-_

Daphne Greengrass leads him to one of the most hidden corridors in the library. She places a silence spell and asks for permission to do a ritual that shows a person's family tree to the beginning of his line.

"Isn't blood magic illegal?"

Daphne looks at him. "We'll only do it if you're sure you want to. I don't know who all your relatives are, I just studied every Potter I found in the books and newspapers that named them.”

Harry looks back at her, thinking of the explanations his soulmate had given him about blood magic in the first year. "There is power in the blood," he had said. "Even a drop has the capability to put you at the mercy of whoever has it."

He bites his lip and nods. He already crossed the line between right and wrong from the moment he decided to give the Philosopher's Stone to Voldemort last year, and isn't this worth it if it's to find out about his family?

"Never give your blood," Daphne warns him before beginning the ritual, pulling a large piece of parchment out of the bag she brought and spreading it on the floor. “Blood has power.”

Daphne takes Harry's hand between hers, guiding it to rest over the parchment, makes a movement with her wand that pricks his index finger and a drop of blood falls, sliding across the width of the parchment, forming names and numbers next to each line.

And they begin.

_Every time I make a bad potion, one of my ancestors writhes in his grave,_ Harry thinks dramatically.

The Ancient and Noble House of Potter has origins in the Middle Ages, its founder being known for inventing the original formula on which the Skelegro potion is based, he had eight children and Harry is specifically descended from his first-born.

"Did you introduce me to Zabini as heir to the 'Noble House of Potter'?

"It was a little slip," she admits, blushing. “I'm not used to formally introducing members of other Houses to each other, and the only time I did it was between Susan Bones and Tracey Davis, both from Noble Houses.”

Fleamont Potter, Harry's grandfather, built an empire of hair potions that revolutionized the market in both the wizarding and muggle worlds, significantly increasing the family's fortune, which by now had been declining, and taking its position. again at levels similar to those of the Flint family fortune or Black themselves.

House Fleamont shares a close relationship with his family and the last two members of the female line disappeared in the 1940s after being part of the Dark Lord Grindelwald inner circle.

The first Potter in his family tree, Hardwin Potter, married Ioanthe Perevell, the last living granddaughter of one of the most powerful necromancers in wizarding history. Ioanthe's grandfather along with his two older brothers inspired Beedle the Bard in one of his most famous stories.

"They said Ignotus Perevell carried the favor of death, just as his blood always will. He was the only one of the siblings who reached old age,” the Slytherin murmurs, her eyes shining with something akin to admiration as she gazed at the branches of blood that spread on the parchment. “And you are his descendant.”

'But everyone told me the Potters are a Light family', Harry wants to say, but he knows it's stupid.

Evidently, the members of the Ancestral and Noble House of Potter went to great lengths to conceal the darkest branches of their line, and especially their ancestry tied to necromancy.

"The Gaunts are Salazar Slytherin's famous descendents and the only daughter of Cadmus Perevell," Harry says, recalling a story his soulmate had told him as Quirrell. Now Harry realizes, with a heat on his cheeks, the man was telling him his family history, isn't that cute? No, Harry, it isn't.

"Ioanthe's aunt." Harry's fingers caress the crimson lines.

Daphne nods, her lips parted in an excited laugh. 

“Ignotus and Cadmus were the only ones to have descendants, which means that the Perevell Lordship falls to one of the direct descendants of their family.”

"I'm his direct descendant," Harry laughs, almost hysterical. “But why didn't any Potter before me claim it? Why did they hide that inheritance?”

"The Perevells were necromancers. Maybe the Potters didn't want anything to do with black magic?”

“I thought the same, that would explain why my family is only known for having always been of the light. But what if it was something else?” Harry looks at the scroll, almost mesmerized. “What if only a necromancing Potter can claim the Perevell inheritance?”

Daphne looks at him wide-eyed. "Necromancers come to their inheritance when they turn fifteen. It is the same that happens with those who have some creature inheritance or blood curse, some are ignorant of what they will inherit unless the inheritance has manifested itself in their parents before them.”

"My parents weren't necromancers."

"That's why we can't be sure you won't have the inheritance." She frowns, and confesses: “The women of the Greengrass line have a blood curse. We die when we reach a certain adulthood.”

Harry looks at Daphne, surprised.

“For generations the curse has not manifested itself, my great-grandfather's sister was the last to have it. My parents are not sure, but they fear that my sister or I have it. We will only know when we reach the age of inheritance.”

"Merlin," Harry whispers.

Daphne exhales. “We're not sure, it hasn't appeared for decades, but the reminder that it can happen is there. Just like necromancy in the Potters.”

"What if the lordship actually went to the family of Cadmus's daughter?"

"The Gaunts are one of the darkest and most pureblood supremacist families of all time. They were married to each other for generations” they both wince at the thought. “And they were always very vocal about descending from Slytherin. If they had a necromancer one way or another they would have made it known even though it is illegal, as the Blacks did in their time.”

"Then they can't claim the inheritance either in the absence of a necromancer Gaunt," Harry supposes. "... wait, are the Blacks a family of necromancers?"

"They had a few in their early days, but haven't heard of a Black with the ability in centuries. It's kinda funny. You have necromancer blood for the Potters and the Blacks.

"But it says here that Dorea Black was just a great-aunt." Harry points to the line with the woman's name.

Daphne looks at him for a few seconds before sighing audibly.

"Even now I forget that you still have a lot to learn from the wizarding world. Sirius Black,” she explains “...is your magical godfather. The only way you could get the Potter Lordship is if you were legitimized by a pureblood, since you are half-blood. By naming Sirius Black as godfather, his blood was joined to yours in one of the few blood rituals accepted by the ministry, so while you are technically not a full Black, you can be the heir to that Lordship until you godfather has a heir of his own. From the mix of blood you actually share some Black traits that you wouldn't have otherwise, like the jaw or nose, and the resemblance is good enough that it could make you pass as a Black from a foreign branch.”

Harry nods at the new information, though his mind keeps wondering how much Black blood, with records of necromancers in the family, would affect his own Perevell heritage.

And if Harry turns fifteen and he results out to be the first Potter to receive the inheritance, what would become of him then? The Boy-Who-Lived a Necromancer?

Oblivious to his thoughts, Daphne picks up on her explanation of most of the facts she remembers about the Potter family. The Fleamonts and Perevells aren't the only questionable branches of the line. There is also Harry's great-grandfather.

"Henry Potter," Daphne explains, pulling out some yellowed newspapers from her bag. In The Quibler, a man who looks almost like an adult version of Harry himself walks out of an establishment held by a dark-haired woman with aristocratic features. “I borrowed them from the Ministry library and have not returned them yet. I was actually planning to show you.”

According to Daphne's research, Henry Potter was Lord Potter in the 1920s and was so publicly against the Minister of the time and the policy that separates wizards from Muggles that he caused his own departure from the Potter seat at the Wizengamot and led to the author of the Sacred Twenty-eight expelled the Potter family name from his book, despite the fact that by that time no member of the House had ever related to Muggles or Muggle-borns.

"The Quibler article has the same date that Henry's actions against the Minister of Magic were made public," she says, showing another article from the Daily Prophet dated October 1921, in which his great-grandfather greets the camera at the doors of the Ministry.

Harry raises his eyebrows. "How much more did you 'borrow'?” he questions, making quotation marks with his hands.

The blonde rolls her eyes. "No one's going to notice." Her lips stretch into a conspiratorial smile. “They won't even know it was me.”

While The Daily Prophet and all the other newspapers and magazines carried the story that Henry Potter became the number one defender of Muggles of the 1920s, the article in the Quibler speculated that the man was seen leaving with Vinda Rosier, known for being part of Grindelwald's acolytes, from a place that would later become famous as a beacon for members of the Dark Lord's Army.

Henry Potter was also the godfather of the last girls of House Fleamont.

And his nickname was Harry.

"Everybody knows The Quibler is hardly capable of writing anything believable anyway," Daphne tells him. “Henry was probably as disgustingly pro-Muggle as your family members are known.”

"Sometimes I forget you're so ..." Harry frowns, "Slytherin."

"It's my house," she points out, and with a wave of her hand tosses her golden hair behind her back. “Also, not all Slytherins hate non-purebloods. I have halfblood and muggleborn friends.”

Harry looks at her.

"I don't hate everything muggle, Harry. Only those like your uncles or muggleborns like Granger.” she holds up a hand. “I don't know Granger completely, but have you ever seen her try to blend in? Practice Samhain? Learn the proper titles or why are the Noble Houses what they are and not just purebloods trying to believe themselves more important than everyone else on the planet?”

"She ... maybe she doesn't know to follow those social rituals. I didn't know until it was explained to me, have you ever thought that those who grow up in the muggle world are never told those things?”

"But they do."

“What?”

"Justin from Hufflepuff is muggleborn. His father is an earl, so you wouldn't notice that he doesn't belong to any pureblood family, but when we first met he couldn't stop talking about the Magic Immersion Guide he got when Professor McGonagall visited his home and explained to his parents about the Wizarding World. It's what they give to all muggleborns.”

"I ..." he stops. “They never gave me any guidance.”

“McGonagall didn't?” And Harry can hear the annoyance in her voice.

"Hagrid was the first wizard I ever met. And before that I only got letters,” Harry admits. “Lots of letters.”

"Hagrid," Daphne says dryly.

Harry nods slowly.

“Hagrid was sent to do the job of one of the Heads of House. _Hagrid_.”

And ... oh. Hagrid, who is technically forbidden from doing magic and never finished his education at Hogwars. The Hagrid who throughout his journey through Diagon Alley told him about the badly bad Slytherin and the goodly good Gryffindor.

Harry is very fond of the half-giant, but he's beginning to understand how strange it is to specifically send Hagrid to show someone the Wizarding World for the first time.

They may have assumed that his uncles explained to him that he's a wizard and that he has always known about magic. But even in that fantasy version of his uncles they could never have taught Harry about his status in pureblood society, the magical celebrations or the social rites he must employ as heir to an Ancient and Noble House.

Something that perhaps the Muggle-borns Magic Immersion Guide would explain.

“Why did they send Hagrid?” he questions aloud.

“I have no idea. But they must not have thought of the best for you in doing so.”

Harry shakes his head, lost. Why would anyone want to hide their inheritance from him? And who?

Daphne touches his shoulder and begins to speak. Harry realizes that she's reading aloud the article about his great-grandfather. He gives her a confused grin that she acknowledges with a nod. Her voice is soft, like the caress of the wind through flowers, and he does his best to just listen to it.

At some point, his thoughts turn to Henry Potter.

After all those stories about his own parents' actions as advocates against dark magic, it's a surprise for Harry to learn about his great-grandfather, even if his possible association with a Dark Lord was dismissed as nonsense.

The reputation of the newspaper that made the article was forever tainted because, how could Henry Potter be seen with a member of a family as dark as the Rosiers if he was kicked out of his seat at the Wizengamot for his support to muggles? Likewise, Potter's name was unblemished and a great example of good light families.

Of course, Harry doesn't know if the article was the result of simple rumors or the truth behind the image of a man who was actually the opposite of what he projected.

But what if it was true?

The Chamber of Secrets experience showed Harry that people are easily influenced. What if Henry Potter didn't have to defend himself in the slightest against accusations of being a possible acolyte of Grindelwald because the world saw what they wanted to see?

Harry remembers an afternoon in Quirrell's office, during his first year, and how he explained to him about the Dark Lords before Voldemort:

Grindelwald's followers are notable in history for preaching their aversion to the separation of wizards and Muggles and the existence of a Ministry of Magic. They believed that ministers should be overthrown and supported the creation of a great Wizarding Empire in which Muggles would be forced into submission.

And wasn't Henry Potter known for preaching almost the same things?

There is a popular saying that every family has its black sheep.

Harry has stopped seeing himself as the Dursleys freak, only good at doing housework and hiding in his closet while pretending he doesn't exist. His family is part of the magical society, and he's the next in line to be Lord of his House. His grandfather probably had hair as untamed as his, and he used it at the source of many galleons that increased the family business. His own parents were heroes who gave their lives for him.

And then there was Henry Potter.

Harry, still clinging to a silly fantasy for a long and fulfilling life alongside his soulmate, the murderer of his parents, was beginning to regard himself as the black sheep of the Potter family.

Now, he believes that Henry Potter earned the title long before him.

But is it fair to call him that, when what Harry knows about his great-grandfather was never confirmed? Was Henry Potter really a secret follower of Grindelwald? Or does Harry just want to believe he was so he doesn't have to face the fact that he's a traitor to his family's beliefs?

Daphne waves two fingers in front of his face, getting Harry's attention.

“Daydreaming?” she questions. “I was telling you that dates tell Charlus Potter was your great-grandfather's little brother but he was also born after your grandfather, so it wasn't very strange that he married Dorea Black. Or that's what your family and the Blacks tree say, anyway.”

"Oh," he blushes. “Sorry.”

"It makes sense you get distracted, Harry, this is a lot of information to analyze."

He nods. "Yeah ... wait, how do you know the Black family tree? And isn't Dorea Black from my grandfather's generation? Who is older in the relationship?”

"Apparently Charlus liked them older, they were ten years apart." The blonde giggles. “And for your other question, I'm bethrothed to Draco Malfoy” she answers, as if it were obvious.

"Draco Malfoy?"

"And like his fiancee, it's my duty to know his family's history, as well as he about mine. His mother was Narcissa Black before marriage.”

"Draco Malfoy?" Harry repeats. She gives him a look. “Er, I mean, we don't get along, but I'm sure he can ... hmm, be a nice guy. Nice guy. Yes. Nice.”

Daphne rolls her eyes. "I know you don't like him. Look, Draco is so much more than he looks underneath all his hair gel. He don't usually act that way unless he want to prove something. As you said yourself, he's a nice guy. But only if he wants to be so.”

"And you're going to marry him. Isn't it weird that you're bethrothed when we're barely twelve? I know it's pureblood tradition to make marriage contracts from the very first show of accidental magic, but it's so ... weird.

"Because we were raised differently," she responds immediately. “And no, Draco is just a friend, and while I will never love him in a romantic way, I know that we will always support each other even if the contract is broken.”

"That's nice," Harry admits. “Are you ...?”

"Draco's grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy, was my soulmate. I never meet him, he died when I was ten. When he died, my mother convinced the Malfoys that me and Draco would make an spectacular couple due to the bond I had with his grandfather”

Harry tentatively reaches out a hand to Daphne, and when she does nothing to stop him, he puts it on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I know it must have been hard for you to losing your soulmate."

She nods and remains silent for a while before looking at Harry, as if deciding something, and exploding.

"Can you believe that besides my father and my sister, no one else has told me that? I never met him or completed the bond, so everyone assume that I am incapable of feeling anything. My own mother even congratulated me for being able to rise so high on the social ladder by being considerated as a good wife by the Malfoys. Considerated” she pronounce the last word as if it were something poisonous. 

Harry looks her face, the angry red on her cheeks.

"But do you know what bothers me the most? I know I can live with it, it's not like I'm broken because I didn't meet my soulmate. I don't care that half the population of the Wizarding World thinks so” she tucks a golden lock behind her ear, a cold smile on her lips. “Merlin, all the soulmate books I have read say that when a person doesn't complete the bond and his soulmate dies they're unable to have feelings. Even the Ravenclaw girls call me 'Ice Bitch' whenever they can. It's just” she sighs, “… I'll always wonder what it feels like to have the complete bond.”

"Hey" he hugs her, awkwardly and not knowing how to comfort her, "those girls are idiots. And no matter what the books say, there may exist exceptions to the rule” he points to his scar. “I can be the only person who has survived the Killing Curse and you can be the only person without a complete bond and a dead half that is capable of feeling.”

Daphne gives him a small smile. "Thank you," there is a silence and then: “Your friend, ”she says carefully. “It's your soulmate” -and it's not a question.

He freezes.

His pulse shoots up and is capable of feel the balls of his feet getting cold with his own magic. Harry swallows, staring at Daphne Greengrass's face, who knows his secret.

Somehow he manages to nod slowly.

She lets out a long, harsh breath, and the light lets them see the dust particles floating around the air. "Excuse my vocabulary, but fate is a giant bitch."

Harry wants to wake up. 

He wants everything to be a nightmare and just wake up.

Someone knows. 

_Daphne knows._

"Harry," the blonde calls. “Please look at me” she holds his face in her hands, and meets his eyes. “I won't tell anyone. It was a risky assumption that didn't leave my head during the summer” he makes a sound that doesn't know if it's a laugh or a sob, or both. “When I brought you the diary, I thought, why are gifts exchanged? How they don't want to murder each other? And there was this theory, not very well known, that you're maybe soulmates and that is the reason why you survived the Killing Curse. I thought that would explain a lot of things that I didn't understand back then”

"No one else knows?"

“No. No. I would never do that to someone, it's your secret to tell. And the theory was scrapped after one of the Wealseys said you had no marks and it was made public.”

He inhales and exhales, and does it several times. "I haven't told anyone, not even Ron or Hermione. And I always hide my marks under spells. I don't know ... I don't know what they would do if I did.”

Harry loves his friends, who were there for him when most of the school turned against him for discovering he spoke Parseltongue, but being Voldemort's soulmate?

Ron would squeeze his shoulder, a scowl on his face as he says, "Sorry mate." Hermione would see him with pity, and would engage in an impossible quest to discover a way to separate soulmate bonds without questioning whether Harry himself wants to be separated from his. 

And what would they do when they learn of Harry's future plans for Voldemort, and how are they the complete opposite of what the world thinks he will do? Or worse, what would they do if by his misfortune the Perevell heritage manifests itself in Harry and he turns out to be a necromancer?

What would Ron and Hermione do?

The blonde opens her lips to say something, and Harry cuts her off, the trembling in his body beginning to subside.

"I think I understand what you said about wondering if I can form a connection with him. For years I always thought that meeting my soulmate would be the best thing that could happen to me and ... then I knew what he did. He doesn't know what we are. I think… I think it's a one-way bind, but there's no such thing in history. ”Harry lets out a hollow laugh that scratches his throat. “I'd rather think of myself as a rare case of soulmates than be certain that he just doesn't want me.”

"Oh Harry," Daphne says and it's very smooth, like the taste of treacle tart on the palate.

“It's not fair. My parents were heroes. But ... thinking about the reason behind their death and how ... And what I'm doing now. What I did. I betrayed them, Daphne. I'm supposed to think about avenging them but it's the least I plan to do. I want my soulmate to love me, even though he's a monster.”

"It doesn't mean you can't mourn their deaths," she says. ”You can love your parents, know what they did for you, and still want to be happy. And if you think that happiness can be found with ... your friend, then you just have to know that it's your choice and yours only. But you're right that your parents were heroes, and I don't think you should forget that even if you choose your soulmate.”

Harry takes a deep breath and nods.

Daphne says softly, as if she's afraid of being overheard, "If he doesn't love you, at least we have historical proof that he's kind of a git. And we can always cast a spell on him in revenge.” her nose wrinkles. “We wouldn't get out alive, but it would be worth it.”

Harry manages to form a smile. "Thanks," he whispers, "Ice bitch."

"Likewise," she smiles at him, the first wide, warm smile she's ever given him, "Scarface."

Harry looks at his family tree, the branches on the parchment spreading crimson and connecting every bloodline from Linfred of Stinchcombe to him. _Blood has power._ "What we'll do with this?"

“We're burning it”

.

The next day, Ginny approaches him with a hesitant smile within minutes of boarding the train.

"Harry." her hands wrap a lock of reddish hair nervously. “I just wanted to ... er, apologize for how I acted this year. I-I hurt so many people and I'm really sorry. For all.”

She looks at him, something like regret shining in her blue eyes. "I also wanted to apologize for ... the other thing."

“Stealing?”

Ginny moves her head quickly, her neck bones creaking, with her eyes glancing around to make sure no one has heard anything.

"Yeah," she grimaces, her hand scraping her neck, "I've been talking to Professor McGonagall and she's been explaining to me how and why what I did was wrong. It was. And it wasn't just she who explained it to me, earlier… ”Ginny looks at him between her lashes, and the identity of the person she's talking about is obvious to Harry. “I... I won't do it again.”

Harry takes a deep breath, not sure what to do exactly.

Ginny's actions, Tom's words and Harry's consequent change in the way he looks at the students around him, especially the Gryffindor ones—if they went so quickly from hating him to loving him, how does he know they won't do it again, how can he trust the true intentions of most of them—, have made Harry stop and think things over, as well as his own feelings about what happened.

Is it bad that he doesn't want to forgive the girl, not in the same way that his treacherous heart has decided to forgive Tom? Ginny made mistakes, but she was also used by Tom, she was manipulated and stripped of control of her own body.

And she's just a child.

Harry sighs. "If you're sure you won't do it again," he says tentatively, "I think we're okay."

Ginny's face transforms into a howl of joy, her arms leaping up towards Harry's neck in a suffocating hug.

Ron and Hermione appear while Ginny is still smiling with pure happiness. The redhead whistles, glancing between him and his sister with a little flick of his eyebrows. "Having fun, mate?"

Harry puts a smile on his face, hiding his complete confusion. "Yeah, sure."

Hermione is dragged away by Ginny, beginning to whisper with fleeting glances towards them. At one point her and Harry's gazes collide, and he thinks he sees something there.

For the remainder of the years that he will be close to the Weasley family, Ginny will act as if the highlights in her first year at Hogwarts never happened.

In the summer, she easily slips into the old ways of the Ginny everyone else knows, but keeps the new Ginevra, the one who recorded every lesson wrapped in beatific smiles and crimson-stained fingers given by Tom, a secret to avoid possible punishment from their parents if they remembered the negative parts of her actions.

Only years of therapy in her adulthood will make her realize that she was manipulated. That at some point Tom Riddle was transformed through her eyes from the man of her nightmares to the Lord whom she admired above all else, her beloved dark angel.

She hates him. She loves him. She wants to kill him. She will kill for him.

Meanwhile, in her teens, Ginevra Weasley will fulfill the task of making him proud.

.

In the summer before her third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Daphne Greengrass's life begins to change.

Her parents are going to separate.

"You won't have them!" Her mother exclaimes for the fifth time that night.

Daphne's feet are cold against the carpet of the downstairs staircase, and beside her, Astoria rests her chin on her bare knees where the pajama nightgown rises, hugging herself.

"It's not like you care anyway, obsessed with your precious Department of Mysteries!" Those are my daughters! Mine! Did you have them in your womb and bled for them? You will not have them!

"You don't care about them," her father replied in a broken tone, far from his usual monotonous speech. Their voice isn't particularly loud, but the acoustics of the mansion and the proximity of the living room allow them to hear all the discussion going on. ”You only want the payments that you will receive. It's what you always wanted: money and status. Or did you care about your daughters every night that you were breaking your wedding vows in our own bed? Did you care when Astoria had to find you in the middle of.. of the act?”

What follows is the telltale sound of a slap.

Astoria hides her face in her hands. "They're wizards," she whispers. “The least they can do is place a silencing spell.”

Daphne sighs, and her eyes wander to the painting of her great-great-grandfather hanging on one of the hallway walls. The man looks from them to the living room door and back, shaking his head in disappointment before moving to another painting.

When her mother throws the door open, she blinks in surprise at the sight of them.

"You should find a man who is willing to give you whatever you want. Do not go for love, there is no such thing” her mother advises, trying to reach out to stroke Astoria's hair, who abruptly escapes away from the touch.

With a dark gaze towards her daughters, her mother begins to walk away down the hall.

"We can work for what we want without having to play with someone's heart," Daphne speaks.

"As if you know what a heart feels like," her mother answers and a secod later she gasps at her own words, almost regretful.

“And you neither!” Astoria yells, giving Daphne a sideways glance.

"You know I didn't mean it that way. Oh, dear I ...”

Her mother grimaces and Daphne's gaze follows her until her form disappears into the nearest room, where she knows there is a fireplace.

“Did she left?” she hears Astoria say and turns to meet their father in the living room door, his eyes swollen.

He nods and the girl rushes to wrap him in her arms. Daphne soon follows her.

"I apologize that you have to heard it. It won't happen again” their father promises them, and she can hear the crying in his voice. He gently kisses both foreheads. “Your mother is no longer going to live here.”

"Will we stay with you?" Astoria questions and there's a kind of desperation in her voice that makes her father hug them again. “Please, I want to stay with you”

He nods.

"Everything will be fine"

Daphne feels a wetness on her cheeks and belatedly realizes that she's crying.

In her room, the blonde seeks comfort among the things of her soulmate. She strokes the covers of the books and flips through the photo album. It's childish, and she knows it, but she can't help it. As is you know what a heart feels like.

Daphne returns the rest of the things to its box, but picks up the clock that she has always ignored among the rest of her soulmate's things. It's quite beautiful — but with a strange shape as if one half is missing — it has a golden chain that gives it the shape of a pendant, small drawings of stars on the edges and some wheels with numbers that slide from top to bottom. She fiddles with the numbers, thinking of her mother's words.

She knows how to love. Or so she thinks. If Daphne doesn't feel love, what does she feel?

For the first time since she was a child, before that garden party, Daphne wishes she had met her soulmate. And, inadvertently, the numbers stop turning and jam at **19:43.**

_Does love exist?_

.

Between the sheets in the smallest room at Number Four, Privet Drive, Harry Potter can't help but recall his conversations with Tom.

"What do you do most days when we don't talk?" Harry had asked.

"Reading, especially. Sometimes I practice aloud the lectures I would give if I were to become a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher” Tom replied and raised a perfect eyebrow at the full tooth smile that formed on Harry's face, as if he had said the best of the jokes. “Most days I ask myself if this is how felt Calypso, however I'd never be like her.”

“Who's Calypso?”

"A Greek legend. She was the daughter of the titan Atlas, who fought against the Olympians on the Titanomachy and was sent to Ogygia as punishment for being the daughter of who she was. Every millennium they would send a hero to her idyllic prison and Calypso would care for them until they recovered from their injuries. The fool fell in love with each one of them, but all the heroes left her behind. In the end there was always her and her broken heart. She remained in her paradisiacal prison waiting men who would always abandon her to the desire of glory that every hero yearns for. The poor Calypso didn't understand that everyone seeks glory, and that love does not matter, only the power."

“Glory is not that awesome, anyways. I mean, people love me 'cause they think I murdered a Dark Lord as a baby, something they have no proof of but neither doubts. He killed both of my parents, but I survived the killing curse and everyone thinks I'm a hero who will end all dark magic in the world, but my s-Voldemort is not dead nor do I plan to murder him.”

"A glorious hero who conquered the Dark Lord?" Harry remembers the pretty curl on Tom's lips as he said it. “Will you leave me missing your green eyes like a fresh pickled toad?”

Harry had laugh. 

"I couldn't leave you if I wanted to," he had answered. “I'll never do it.”

"No," Tom's voice was honeyed as he said it, his eyes shining dark “You wont”

Harry finds himself retrieving the diary hidden deep in his trunk, along with the other books his soulmate gave him, and runs his fingers through the worn leather case.

He opens it and strokes the pages one by one, then takes out a pen and writes.

He's not going to apologize.

He wont.

Neither of them plan to do so, and isn't that what they both have the most in common? That stubbornness that makes them grit their teeth and refuse to take the first step toward forgiveness. There is also a marked difference: Tom is patient. And Harry hates waiting.

'I miss you,' he writes. The diary begins to feel warm to the touch, pleased waves rumbling through his fingers.

The answer comes in an elegant script immediately: 'I miss you too, pickled toad,' promises the italics. And Harry's chest heaves with that.

“What are you?” he asks aloud.

Tom had told him he was a memory, but Harry knew that was a lie the moment Albus Dumbledore seemed both relieved and horrified when he told him about the diary after the mess in the Chamber of Secrets.

Now, the diary shows him something: a conversation between Tom and a plump man in his office. Judging by the school robes and the multi-colored jars on the shelves, they're into a potions teacher's office. 

"I was in the library the other night, in the Restricted Section, and I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic, and I thought, perhaps, you could illuminate me. It's called, as I understand it...”

The rest of the memory leaves Harry shaking in his seat. He knows very well what happened to Myrtle Warren but, in his head, he always assumed that murder was due to Tom's hatred for Muggles.

It's worse.

"You murdered Myrtle," he says, "... you killed her to break your soul, Tom."

The most terrible magic of all.

Harry contains the sudden feeling of nausea that threatens to expel all his stomach contents. "Did you made the seven?" He forces himself to ask.

'I don't know' answers the italics, and they almost looks apprehensive. 'But I had plans for the relics of the Hogwarts founders. Helga's cup, Salazar's locket, Rowena's diadem. The sword, as we already know, is safe. '

“Why? Why would you do this to your soul, Tom?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

It's the deepest fear of a child raised in the middle of a war, in which every meal and little breath was a blessing. 

_Vol de mort_

Harry shudders at the thought of what would have happened if he had murdered the journal in the Chamber, a piece of his soulmate's life. One of many who stand between Voldemort and death. 

“It is our choices that show us who we truly are,” a proud Albus Dumbledore had told him that day as Harry lied through his teeth about the fate of the diary.

And now, Harry will protect the piece of soul he has.

He hides the diary deep into his trunk and closes it tightly. After all, no one will think that Harry Potter has the secret to Lord Voldemort's mortality.

He has a plan, and he's going to follow it.

.

The next day, someone knocks the Dursleys' door.

On the other side, Lucius Malfoy is standing with his walking cane. Dressed in elegant clothing, but with open chest buttons and a bit scruffy in classic bad boy style, Sirius Black is by his side.

Aunt Petunia looks at them with wide eyes.

"W-what are you doing he-here?"

Her hands are shaking and Harry is quick to recall the lessons his soulmate gave him last year before she snaps out of her trance.

He makes a small arc towards the two men, which comes out a bit awkward from lack of practice. "Lord Black, Lord Malfoy"

Then he trips and falls, like newborn Bambi.

Malfoy raises an eyebrow. Beside him, Sirius laughs with a howl, losing whatever composure he's ever had. He nudges Lucius. "That's my godson," he says. “Clasical Potter, huh.”

In the background, Vernon's footsteps sound heavy as he approaches the hall. Aunt Petunia opens her mouth, her ears and neck turning red.

"Shut up, Black," Lord Malfoy says. His voice is actually soft when the words leave his lips, but his nose wrinkles slightly at the sight in front of him.

"Make me, Malfoy," Sirius responds, a little warmth in his tone. Shaking his head, he looks at Harry and crouches down next to him. “Harry! You have no idea how long I've waited to see you again.”

Harry knows he's grinning from ear to ear. "Hi, Padfoot."

“FREAKS!"

And there is Uncle Vernon.

Somehow, things are kept calm by a disgruntled Lucius Malfoy who convinces his uncles that they all can come to an agreement that will be mutually beneficial to everyone. That is how Petunia and Vernon start packing their bags for a vacation and go to pick up Dudley after signing a permit that will give Lord Malfoy guardianship of Harry while they are away to care for him.

“Why would Lord Malfoy want my custody?” Harry asks Sirius in the hall.

“Why would I waste the opportunity to show how kind I am?” Lord Malfoy replies, walking out of the living room. “This, Heir Potter, is a situation that will benefit us both.”

"Yes, yes, we already know that you give away love and kindness like a sweet princess." Sirius rolls his eyes and looks at Harry. “I have to go through two years of therapy before the healers consider me fit to take care of you, pup,” he responds and hastens to pull Harry into his arms with a smile. He whispers softly: “Aurora there will help to keep you away from those muggles and I'll be the awesome godfather that go the weekends for fun”

"Don't lie yourself, Black, you'll be the homeless-looking uncle," Lord Malfoy says, clenching his gloved hands on his can. “Or the stray dog with fleas that keeps coming after giving him a bone.”

“And you can meet Moony!” Sirius continues, and anyone would think he was pretending to ignore what the other wizard said except that Harry caught a glimpse of the middle finger extending towards Lord Malfoy. A spell is cast to Sirius and he dodges it with a jump.

Lord Malfoy looks at Harry. "Go get your things." his tone does not accept arguments and he hurries to get his trunk.

As an afterthought, Harry realizes that Lucius Malfoy has a closeness to Sirius Black that none of the stories his godfather shared with him from his years before he was arrested mentioned.

Lucius Malfoy, who was accused of being a Death Eater but escaped from Azkaban after claiming to have been enchanted by the Imperius curse.

Malfoy.

A follower of Voldemort.

Dragging his trunk up the stairs, Harry's ear tunes into an exchange that years later will make him understand that his godfather, despite appearances, is Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, a family everyone in the wizarding world fears for a reason.

"You're not the only one with such plans," Lord Malfoy is saying. “We don't know the boy's intentions yet.”

"I wish I had taught those Muggles a lesson," he listens to Sirius, his voice as low as a growl. “The things I would have done to them for treating my kiddo like that.”

Harry realizes that they are looking at his cupboard, the evidence of which someone used it for years remains intact. _Oh shi-_

"All due its time, Black," Lord Malfoy replies and he's surprised to hear the anger in his voice. “All due its time.”

Before leaving the house, there's a noise on the outside and they find Mrs. Figg loitering in the doorway. Lord Malfoy, wand in the hand, mutters a spell at the woman's surprised expression.

Which, of course, is when Harry learns that his neighbor is a squib working for Albus Dumbledore.

"I worked alongside the old goat and your parents in the Order of the Phoenix, an organization the Headmaster founded to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Sirius tells him bitterly and watches Mr. Figg go home with no memory of having seen them that day. “I joined because, for a long time, I hated everything about my family and dark magic. I was a fool, Harry. Azkaban gave me a lot of time to think and the therapy has helped me understand what happened. What do you know about the house where your parents hid?”

Harry shakes his head. He knows only the story from the newspapers: James and Lily Potter hid in Godric's Hollow under a Fidelius. Their secret keeper was Peter Pettigrew, though they made everyone they knew assume that Sirius was the true keeper to ward off Wormtail's suspicions.

"You may explain him," Lord Malfoy suggests, and glances Harry's cupboard. “I need to check something.”

"I was going to do it anyway," Sirius mutters and reachs Harry's arm. “Do you know what apparition is?” 

The destination is Godric's Hollow.

Sirius appears them in front of a destroyed house, the windows blew out and the walls collapsed. He ignores the house and goes straight to the city cemetery, passing the monument to Harry's parents with the statues of a young man and woman cradling a baby, smiling and happy.

Harry's throat closes as he reaches out to touch the cheek of his mother's statue. Can he miss someone he'd never met? He presses his finger into the cold stone, scraping against his palm. Or maybe it is the feeling of the life he has loss, the longing of an orphan child who could never know his mother's goodnight kiss or the weight of his father's hands while stroking his hair? 

Harry follows Sirius to his parents' graves.

"I miss you," he hears Sirius whisper on his knees. “I miss you, Prongs, and I know how much you would be teasing me right now, James, but I loved you so much. Merlin, you were my brother and…” Sirius's voice breaks, “I couldn't protect you like I couldn't protect Reggie. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Harry's ribs sink in as he takes a deep breath, and pain bleeds through the salt that slides one cheek. His parents gave their lives for him. And although he never knew them, he knows they loved him.

What was it that motivated his soulmate that night in October to attack his parents, to try murder him? Why did James and Lily Potter have to die? 

It was war, and they were his enemies, yes.

But is still unfair.

And why, standing in front of the grave where lie the people who sacrificed themselves for him to live, is Harry unable to feel hatred towards the murderer?

_'I'm sorry, mom and dad,'_ he thinks. _'I'm so sorry'._

"It was Dumbledore," Sirius says then, and his silver eyes have a swirl of darkness that Harry notices for the first time, "He's the one who casted the fidelius spell. He knew that I was innocent and that Peter was a traitor. For eleven years he knew I haven't trial and pretended otherwise because of the bloody greater good.”

Did Dumbledore know that Sirius was innocent and never did anything?

"But Dumbledore is a good man," Harry finds himself saying.

Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin First Class, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and could he not demand a trial for a man whose innocence he was aware?

"He didn't tell you, did he?" Sirius gives a hollow laugh. “Didn't tell you he had the idea for your parents to hide out here in Godric's Hollow, in the house that once belonged to his family?”

Albus Dumbledore, who is a great man. 

"Don't trust Dumbledore, Harry, please," -and Sirius's eyes are pleading.

"It's okay," he assures Sirius, and sits down next to him on the ground. On his parents' grave, an epitaph can be read:

**_The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death._ **

.

Harry's first day living at Malfoy Manor doesn't go well.

Okay, that's unfair.

He befriends the house elves in the house, who adore him for saying 'please' and 'thank you' every time they do something for him. Dobby, most of all, is one of the elves who seems to be impressed by Harry and stands out because he actually hates Malfoys, unlike the other house elves who are content with the family.

Lady Narcissa is courteous the only times Harry sees her at meals, and she is kind in explaining with a calm voice the correct way to use each cutlery.

That, of course, isn't enough to overshadow Draco's hideous grin as he shoves Harry against a wall on his way to show him the rooms Lord Malfoy assigned him.

"Do you think you can come to my house, Saint Potter, and steal all my parents' attention? Isn't being the Golden Boy enough for you, huh?”

"Leave me alone, Malfoy."

"Or what, Potty? Are you going to cry to your parents? Oh right, they are dead-

...He can't help it, really, when his fist impacts Draco's pompous face.

.

Harry's heart beats fast as he storms into the office, his hands shaking and his lips pursed. What if they kick him out? What if they return him to the Dursleys? What if they do the same as his uncles and leave him without eating as punishment? What if ... what if they put him into a cupboard?

"I didn't start it. It was not my fault”

"Get out and close the door," Lord Malfoy says, not looking away from the papers on his desk.

"Dobby said you wanted to see me!"

"Yes, but in a civilized environment you must knock before entering."

Harry makes an effort and restrains himself from snorting like a kid. He goes to the door, closes it and knocks three times.

“Who is it?” Lord Malfoy's voice is heard on the other side.

"Merlin." Harry rolls his eyes as he enters.

Lord Malfoy looks up from his papers and raises an eyebrow. "Lord Emrys," he says, his voice taking on a mock accent, "I apologize for the confusion, we were led to believe you had larger ears.”

Harry rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Sir, I didn't do it. And it wasn't my fault. Your son has serious attitude problems and I wont be punished for his fault.”

"I know exactly what happened, Heir Potter."

"And why am I the one here?"

"Because I want to talk to you," he answers. “First, straighten your back and look into my eyes. You will be the future Lord of the Noble and Ancient House of Potter, do not lower your manners no matter how affected you feel by a situation.”

Harry glares at him, before deflating from his defensive position and settling in.

"The paintings told me what happened, and I know Draco. I'm aware that I must expect a slightly altered version of events to play in his favor. Do you know where he learned it from?”

“You”

"And unfortunately, Draco still hasn't ... perfected the practice."

Harry is surprised to find that Lord Malfoy looks slightly disappointed in his son. It should be a relief to know that, unlike the Dursleys, he doesn't believe every lie told by his son and knows his worst behaviors, even if he won't do anything to correct it.

"My point, Potter, is that the heirs of our society learn every necessary lesson to be proper heads of their houses and carry their families legacy. What they do with such knowledge is at their own discretion. You're both young, and Draco will learn over time that his behavior is unacceptable, but he will never understand it without consequences, so I must let him make mistakes.”

"And what would you do in the event Draco gets hurt by his actions?" Harry questions. “Would you ignore it for the sake that he 'learned his lesson' or would someone else effect the consequences for reacting as anyone would do when teased by Draco?”

"You won't be punished for something that was a mere...misunderstending" the man assures him. “And if in the future Draco decides to continue to...act as he does now, I will intervene. However, you also have to learn to manage your anger.”

Harry raises both eyebrows.

"If you weren't the first to miss, don't attack right away. Imagine that you are a snake in the grass, waiting for the best moment to go towards its prey.

“I'm a lion.”

"And a lion's not interested in the opinion of the sheep," he continues, "do not be intimidated or react in a violent way because there will be no more satisfaction for the lower people than seeing you on the same level as them."

The memory of the fight between Lord Malfoy and Mr. Weasley last summer lifts Harry's lips into a small smile. The man in front of him looks at him and purses his lips in annoyance, maybe aware of what he's thinking. Harry's smile grows a little bigger.

Lord Malfoy takes the quill in its inkwell. “The way you leave my care at the end of the summer will be a representation of the Malfoy House. What you show out there will be a painting of my family. The public may never know, but I will. And you'll better present an image appropriate to your heir status as a ward of my house. That, Potter, is the reaspn you will learn lessons from me starting tomorrow.”

"What will I learn?"

"Everything a Malfoy ward needs to know, of course." Lord Malfoy looks back at his papers. “And more.”

The following week, Draco and Lady Narcissa go to visit the Delacours, where their daughters of Veela blood help the boy to prepare for the day when his creature heritage will flourish.

And somehow, Harry forms a routine at the Malfoy estate.

In the mornings, he goes for a run around the endless grounds of the mansion or flies on his broom and watches the albino peacocks. He has breakfast in Lord Malfoy's company and gets used to his comments on the events in the newspaper and the number of times he insults Rita Skeeter's skewed writing in the funniest ways.

Harry spends hours learning his future responsibilities at the Ministry and the Wizengamot as Heir Potter, how to manage his finances, and understand the laws of the wizarding world. Lord Malfoy has also started to teach him about dueling and at some point Harry begins to spend his days in the Malfoy library, with books that are quite interesting and possibly banned in various countries on the continent.

Every night Sirius Black comes dinning and, on Harry's birthday, brings Remus Lupin with him, who is as happy as Lord Malfoy to ignore the other's presence after the first formal greetings and spends the entire evening getting to know Harry.

"I know he wouldn't want you to know this," his godfather tells him when Remus passes through the green flames of the fireplace as he leaves, "but Moony tried to adopt you when your parents died."

“What happened?”

"Those bloody laws against werewolves passed..."

At the beginning of that day, he receives updates from Hagrid, Ron, and Hermione, the owls arrives with presents for his birthday at midnight. Surprisingly, Harry is in constant correspondence with Draco Malfoy, to whom he tells every little thing that happens in the mansion and exchanges written insults, and the blond's owl delivers a dragon skin sheath with a strap for his wand and a kit for proper care of magic wands.

Harry looks at his wand, with fingerprint spots all over it, and grimaces at Malfoy's note. The parchment is highlighted by two different letters:

_Potter,_

_Despite how delighten would make me to see you explode by sitting on your wand, mother says it's not a polite birthday wish. Thus I've gotten you a new holster for your waist and a wand maintenance kit from mother. Seriously Potter, clean your wand, it looks likes been into a weasel's den... But what can have I expect after you've been raised by filthy muggles?_

_**Excuse his words, Heir Potter, he's just being grumpier than usual today. The beauty of your wand deserves proper care and we are confident that your education has progressed since your arrival in the family.** _

_Best Wishes, Draco and Narcissa Malfoy. ___

__

__At breakfast, he thanks Lord Malfoy for his gift: a complete collection of custom-made winter and summer wardrobe that the note claimed to be suitable for a ward of his family._ _

__"There is nothing to be grateful for, Heir Potter," the blond replied without looking at him, but Harry can see the most imperceptible of smiles forming on his lips._ _

__After flying his broom over the gardens, Harry arrives in his room to find a bird in his window. The owl, with well-groomed brown wings, stands on the windowsill holding a package and flies away the moment Harry takes it._ _

Opening it, he extracts _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ : **‘To my favorite Perevell (after Ignotus), who lives a very lot. You know which story reminds me of you’** says Daphne Greengrass's neat handwriting on the first page.

__Harry searches until he finds the tale of the three brothers and rolls his eyes when he sees a smiley face drawn to a side._ _

__There's another gift in the room, carefully placed on the sheets of his bed, which he doesn't recall receiving by an owl._ _

__It's another book, with a dedicatory that leaves Harry's heart pounding in his ribcage. "Tibby," he calls. His gaze unable to leave the letters on the page._ _

__One of the Malfoy's house elves appears in a snap and he does his best to give her a small smile as she greets him. "Aren't you very busy, Tibby?"_ _

__"Tibby helps Master Potter with whatever he wants. What does Master Potter want Tibby to do?”_ _

__"Do you know if there is a guest in the mansion? And I told you can call me Harry, Tibby.”_ _

__"Tibby served Master Lucius and the Serpent Lord tea, mast-Harry. The Serpent Lord asked Tibby to put that book on Harry's bed”_ _

__Harry gives Tibby another smile. "Thanks for your help, Tibby, you're awesome”_ _

__Tibby lets out a high-pitched squeak, happy for the compliment and disappears with a 'pop'. Harry looks back at the book and runs his fingers over and over the words:_ _

___Happy Birthday, Harry Potter_ _ _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you a seer?"
> 
> Luna giggles, a bell-like sound. "It took you a long time to realize it, my Lord."

Despite his fluttering heart upon learning that his soulmate is at Malfoy Manor, having afternoon tea, Harry tries to remain calm: He reads an entire chapter about the differences between white magic and light magic in his new book, and —when he no longer bear the constant movement of his restless feet against the wood—, leaves the room and paces the hallways.

Knowing very well what he's doing, Harry takes the path to the library that passes in front of Lord Malfoy's office. Then he hears it: _Crucio!_

Its follow a scream. 

Harry remains stuck into his feet, gaping and unable to move. A bead of cold sweat slides down his skin, and he only snaps out of his stupor when the sounding pain stop and the door is slammed open by a shaking Lucius Malfoy.

Behind him —holding a book, with graceful long legs crossed under the reading table across the room— is Lord Voldemort.

Lord Malfoy stares at Harry with a sheer terror that would be comical in any other ocassion.

"It seems to me," says Lord Voldemort, a kind of casual nonchalance that makes Lord Malfoy wince even more, "-that I'd want speak to Harry, may I, Lucius?"

Although the words asked permission, in the voice of the Dark Lord float as an order that does not allow discussion. Lord Malfoy gives a shaky bow and squeezes Harry's shoulder as he leaves.

Voldemort looks like an older version of Tom in the diary, with his dark curly hair, creamy skin and face that seems to be carved by angels. However, while the horcrux has eyes like the sky during a storm, Lord Voldemort's gaze gleam blood stained. 

"Looks like the stone did a good job, huh," Harry says, restraining himself from running off like a coward. 

_You're a lion, Potter, be brave._

"Mmm." The eyes, a shimmering sea of crimson, land on Harry and gives him a slow sweep before returning nonchalantly to the book. “I heard a rather disturbing rumor... Something about you destroying my gift?”

Harry swallows.

"Professor Dumbledore thinks I did," he explains, his voice coming out so neutral that he mentally pats himself on the back for not freaking out. “The diary opened the Chamber of Secrets and released the basilisk. I had to twist the truth a bit so the headmaster wouldn't try to destroy it. It was ... er, sadly easy how quickly the lie was believed.

Voldemort's lips widens enough to give any sane person nightmares and his eyes dart from Harry to the couch next to him. Only then does Potter notice that he's been standing like an idiot in the doorway the entire time.

Harry feels a tingle in his magic and something prompts him to tell what happened in second year to Voldemort, perhaps is the feelings of security he maintains from the time that the man was his mentor behind Quirrell's turban, or it may be the fact that this is Tom Marvolo Riddle - original version - and his soulmate. 

... Or is it something else?

"I killed the basilisk," he continues, and rolls up the sleeve of his arm to reveal the scar made by the creature's tusk. “Fawkes saved me with his tears. Er, in that moment everyone believed that I was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

“What made them believe that were you, of all people?” Voldemort turns a page in his book.

"I speak Parseltongue," Harry admits and Voldemort's eyes linger for a second too long before continuing his reading. “The Hufflepuffs were convinced that I would rise as the next Dark Lord thirsty for badger blood.” He winces at the thought. “There were many petrified people and I guess Dumbledore tried to keep the whole Chamber of Secrets thing a secret or all Wizarding World would already know about it.”

Voldemort sets his gazes on the teenager and, after a heartbeat, asks, "Why are you with the Malfoys?"

Harry clenches his teeth. He wants to lie, but there is something that prevents it and makes him tell the truth instead:

"My uncles gave Lord Malfoy permission to take care of me this summer. They ... despise me. I was always the freak, a stain on their bloody perfect and respectable family.” The words fall out of his mouth poisoned, and this is the first time Harry has ever been so honest about what he feels for the Dursley. “They starved me sometimes and I always had to hide when other visited. I couldn't even dare to think in sharing a table with normal people.

Harry pauses as he notices how the magic in the room thickens on his senses, threateningly warm. “For eleven years the cupboard under the stairs was my bedroom. I didn't even know about magic until the letter came. They were very happy to sign.”

“A _cupboard_ ”

Harry nods. And after looking at the flash of crimson rage swimming the eyes of his soulmate, he sets his gaze on the nearest wall. Was it always so blue before?

"And you're pro-muggle."

"Not all are the same," he defends immediately, despite knowing what a fool he is for arguing with Voldemort. “Do my relatives treat me like shit? Yeah. But not all muggles are the same.”

"Still the Golden Boy of the Light, it seems." 

Harry opens his mouth to protest how much he has made it clear that he's not on the light side as much as he's not on the dark one. He rejected to join his soulmate in first year and every action he has taken since then rejects the light even more.

Harry wants to be neutral. Or so he thinks.

Voldemort interrupts him, closing his book. "My life's purpose is to save the Wizarding World from muggle influence. And, one day, you'll understand it too”.

Harry gives the Dark Lord a grin that he has learned from watching too many interactions between Lucius Malfoy and Sirius Black. “I wish you luck then.”

Voldemort gives Harry a dark look in response, and the heat in the room rises a few degrees from his threatening magic. Harry tries to stop the snort that escape from his lips, but fails terribly.

And because he's still a Gryffindor with no impulse control: “Snape is scarier. And McGonagall too”

"Severus has oily hair, a hooked nose, and his goal in life is to imitate a vampire." Voldemort says. “And McGonagall is... McGonagall”

Harry's eyebrows rise up.

"... Do you admit they're more intimidating than you?"

Voldemort's lips twitches into an amussed grin.

"If you were a Death Eater, you would be under the Cruciatus Curse by now for disrespecting me."

Voldemort stretches out a long-fingered hand, and tucks a loose hair across Harry's forehead behind his ear, the red eyes moving past the greenish gaze to the lightning bolt-shaped scar adorning his forehead.

"Lucky me" Harry dares to mutter. But all he thinks is: _OhMerlinOhMerlinOhMerlin._

The Dark Lord brings his index finger to the scar, crimson and emerald eyes looking at each other with intensity. Harry feels a shudder in his soul, his own magic chilling in anticipation of the intoxicating touch he's longing, only to freeze more and more to his core until burning. His soulmarks sing, tickle and melt into his skin. He can feel a deep tug on his stomach as everything inside him twists in anticipation and-

The hand moves away like it was never there in the first place.

"Lucky you," the man hisses in agreement and goes back to his book.

Harry spends the rest of the conversation with a pounding heart inside his ribcage and a sour taste watering on his tongue.

.

When Voldemort leaves, Harry runs to the gardens. There, Lord Malfoy sits in the grass more gracefully than it should be possible on his shaking limbs and watches his albino peacocks scamper around.

“Are you okay?” Harry questions.

Lord Malfoy studies Harry's expression for a few seconds before sighing. “Sit down. Today you're going to learn the unforgivable curses.”

Later, a few hours before dinner, Harry walks alone into the woods of the manor, his wand hidden in the holster at his waist, wildflowers and tree branches dancing with the air while the grass crunches under his boots as he stroll.

He bends down to pick up one of the flowers when he sees the rabbit. The white fur is stained by the river of blood running down his side, the bulging red eyes stare at Harry in terror, letting out groans of pain so low he barely hears them.

Harry looks at the rabbit mournful. "I don't know of any healing spell," he says. The animal continues to suffer at his feet, the screeching growing louder.

He thinks about what he learned today and, with trembling fingers, pick up his wand.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. “ _Avada Kedavra_.”

The rabbit stays quiet.

.

After his birthday dinner, Remus Lupin hands him a gift-wrapped book that Harry opens carelessly. It's the same one he keeps in his trunk, with handprints everywhere from reading often.

"How did you knew this is my favourite?"

The man is surprised for a few seconds before giving him a tender smile. "I didn't," he admits, "It was your mother's favourite."

There are smeared ink spots over the first page and, in a handwriting as egregious as his, Harry reads:

**Property of Lily J. Evans**

.

The majestic library of the Malfoys is capable of wet the dreams of any respectable Ravenclaw. It can be found everything there, from the newest books on the market to old-looking tomes that are kept dust-free by the hard work of the family house elves.

Harry has only read the most recent books, but that day something motivates him to get lost among the shelves that rise up to the silver ceiling and find a specific book: Rise and Fall of Runes in the Magical Society.

Throughout the Wizarding History, runes are an important part of certain societies, being a language and a whole branch of magic entirely. As far as Harry knows, runes mark the beginning of the first rituals of magical religion. Blood has power and the blood runes bathed in the stone led the first wizards to discover another branch of magic altogether. There is one passage in the book that catches his attention more than any other: 

**_The blood runes carried fear at the hand of their own users, those who walked under a trail of darkness and embraced it like a son into its mother's breast. Notwhitstanding the magic used by these individuals is a secret known only to its bearers, those who have been witnesses assert that is the most abhorrent act against life itself. Despite the capacity for good, the runic language was marred by the reputation of the children of death-_**

Harry removes his glasses and squints his eyes before repositioning them. The author continues for another three pages explaining the first known necromancer ritual until that moment and Harry's own magic shudders when his fingers caress the runes drawn in red on the paper.

Runes used to be a subject of debate about why and how they work. Harry knows that nowadays the most accepted theory in all academic circles is that runes act as magical conductors and are not functional if there is a slightest mistake in the rules established by that theory: The order, angle or thickness of the strokes of the lines and even the calculated separation between one rune and another can affect how magic works and reacts through it. This rules are considered universal among rune masters and it is the first thing to be taught in any introduction to the subject.

By accepting this theory, it is even mandatory for beginners to use rune kits with all the measurements considered correct for practice. Unfortunately, Harry's first read was not a runes begginers book but diaries and letters exchanged between great Icelandic wizards published in a single book and which were banned in all ICW countries for their content.

Magic is guided by intention. You have to want something for your magic to be able to pull it off, and from that first reading in his first year, to Harry runes can only work if he's convinced they have power. The most anciet runes were primitive in their origins, yes, but they still served their purpose. So how would that theory explain that for centuries the most uneven strokes of the first rune masters worked?

What Harry doesn't know is that ancient runes are considered for the most part of the Wizarding World as a complicated language and whose study in wizardry schools is similar to that any other language. You will not learn to use magical properties in the five years of Study of Ancient Runes class, but you will learn to translate and read them.

Even then, only a rune master will be able to use them as a magic conduit solely using runestones that must be updated after every certain time.

But Harry ignores this, and his impulsiveness leads him to try and prove to himself that his beliefs that things like the angle of the strokes do not matter to achieve the effectiveness of a rune. He leaves the library and heads towards the dueling room in the manor.

Taking his wand from the holster on his left arm, he holds it up in the air thinking of a writing spell he once saw Tom doing. Harry takes a deep breath, his mind focused on what he will do, and draws the Laguz rune in the air with his wand.

And nothing happens.

He tries one more time, and another, and another, and another and again.

Then he sees it. 

There, in the place where his wand traced the rune, a stream of water rushes to the nearest wall. It stays for a full minute before disappearing. Instead of paper, stone or wood, his own magic is the material he uses and he feels like taking a break after swimming in murky waters for too long.

Harry smiles proudly and remembers what Lord Malfoy told him at the beginning of his dueling lessons about how achieving something for the first time doesn't imply that he's already good at doing it. He needs to practice over and over again until he's able to draw the rune and summon water in seconds.

At the same time, Harry's mind reels on a single thought: Runes are an alphabet, and together they make up a language. For him, that opens up miles of possibilities of how to use runes as another way to duel.

Again, in the wizarding world runes are rarely used for their magic and all runic masters agree that using them for duels would bena suicide because of all the time it would take to draw runes on a stone or scroll and use them.

However, Harry Potter doesn't know this, nor how amazing is the magic act he just performed.

.

The arrival of Draco and Lady Narcissa from France happens a few days before a dinner between the Malfoys and the Minister of Magic.

Cornelius Fudge comes on a starry night, and Lord Malfoy talks to Draco and Harry about the consequences there will be if they don't stay into their best behavior. And for the first time, both teens agree on something when the evening is over.

"That guy is a complete arsehole," Harry mutters at the exact moment the green flames in the fireplace vanishes.

"Yes," Draco nods, "and also disgusting. Father, didn't you saw Fudge was unable to look beyond mother's breasts throughout the night?”

“And he simply signed ministry documents without reading them in the middle of a meal?” Harry continues. “Is that really the Minister?”

"Fudge is a mere puppet for witches and wizards bigger than him," Lady Malfoy explains. “At the moment, he has utility, so you must learn to tolerate it and wait until his time is up.”

“Like a snake in the grass waiting for the best moment to go towards its prey?” Draco and Harry asks at the same time and look at each other with identicals frowns.

Lord Malfoy's lips turn into a grin. “Exactly.”

.

The Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass consist in a long line of pureblood witches and wizards, gray in both politics and magic, who maintain close blood ties with darker and powerful families while forming part of the neutral party founders in the origins of the Wizengamot with more lighter families like Bones, Smith and Crouch. Some families have changed sides throughout history, but the House Greengrass has always stay neutral.

In mid-August, Daphne Greengrass fiancé and his mother return from France, so the entire Greengrass family is invited to a dinner with the Malfoys. And she, despite having no evidence to support her hypothesis, knows what will happen tonight.

Malfoy Manor towers over them as they wait before its massive, ornate silver-forged gates, the ancient magic of the building vibrating beneath their feet. Astoria, who often behaves without regard to the norms of society, inspects from Daphne's collected blonde hair to her pale blue dress with gold inlays on the sides and turns away when she sees that nothing is out of place.

"Mother's gone” Astoria explains to Daphne raised eyebrow and grimaces at the sad look that falls on her father's face. “So we'll have all the attention in her place. And your hair unties all the time”.

The doors open seconds later, silent. In the torch-lit entrance hall, the Malfoy family and Harry Potter await them in all their icy glory. He and Daphne connect glances and the black-haired boy gives her a smile.

She returns it.

"Lord Malfoy," greets his father, "Lady Malfoy. House of Greengrass cherish the invitation to your house and table. Blessed be your magic and the magic of your blood.”

"Blessed be the blood," the three Malfoys respond in chorus, and Daphne can feel the rumble of power bathing the walls of the mansion.

"We welcome you to our humble abode," Lady Narcissa continues —and Dapne can see how Astoria hides a smile in her hand at the word 'humble' while Harry, behind Lady Narcissa, rolls his eyes—. The woman moves an arm inward. “This way.”

They follow her.

Daphne looks at Draco, walking close to his parents. He's taller and finally let go of his hair gel phase, which is now combed to the left side and no longer seems trying to match the sunshine glow. Harry walks a few steps back, closer to her and her sister.

And seeing the Boy-Who-Lived is quite a surprise.

Daphne remembers Harry's appearance similar to that of a stray hedgehog, a thin, brittle-looking little thing under gigantic clothing. The Harry in front of her has grown several inches, is wearing better clothing, and the skin no longer adheres to his bones. She could even dare to say that now he looks...

"Wow," Astoria whistles low to Daphne's ears, "Potter is _hot_."

Their father manages to hear what was said and throws a warning look at the girl. Astoria immediately adjusts her posture, gently running her hands over her pastel yellow dress as she dons her best mask of polite nonchalance.

Harry is dressed with an emerald silk shirt, made in a way that does justice by highlighting the bright green eyes behind his glasses, and the collar button opens to reveal the groove in his neck but not enough to show his clavicle to intrusive glances. His hair is tousled as usual, but the strands fall in a way that is more pleasing to the eye rather than assimilating to the usual bird's nest.

"You look good," Daphne whispers to the other teenager as she catches up to his footsteps.

"I look like a Malfoy," Harry answers quietly. “Well, no. I look like a Potter dressed by Malfoy's.”

"You look good," she repeats.

"Daphne, nobody's clothes should be this expensive” -and from the way he looks around discreetly, as if making sure no one hears them, she knows it's not the first time he's dared to give voice to that thought.

She sighs. "As a Hei-

"Heir to a Ancient and Noble House," Harry cuts her words, "This is what I should wear, I know. Lord Malfoy made the same argument. But Merlin, they're so...

"Malfoy, yes," she says, knowing very well what the word encompasses. And despite not showing it, Daphne understand: her ten-year-old self hadn't understood the need to receive the many translucent letters made of real diamond with floating silver lettering just to inform her that a tea date had been postponed, every single time. “Sooner or later you will get used to it.”

"Daphne, the problem is I'm already used to it," he whispers back, "It's awful."

She gives him a consoling pat on the arm. Internally, she rolls her eyes, because Harry has gotten a bit dramatic in his time with the Malfoys.

 _Sweet Circe_ —she thinks—, _it is contagious?_

Draco walks up to them with a raised eyebrow before taking Daphne's hand and leading her the rest of the way to the dining room. "Was he bothering you?" 

"Harry isn't like that," she replies without thinking, and Draco's eyebrow rises higher, "But your concern is appreciated." she adds and take his arm. “I missed you”

They go into the dining room.

Lucius sits at the head of the table, Lady Narcissa on his right side and Draco on his left. Daphne sits with the Lady Malfoy with Astoria next to her. Harry sits to Draco's right, followed by her father. Dinner begins like all meals in pureblood society: full of false courtesies and extravagant dishes served by house elves.

The conversation focuses on the current political environment, and the stories that Draco and Lady Narcissa have to tell about their time in France. Of course, everything becomes awkward when the woman questions her mother's whereabouts with a tone of feigned concern in the middle of dinner.

Her father looks at his plate of lamb as if the death animal could give him all the answers, and Daphne allows her irrationality self to hate Lady Malfoy for a few seconds before giving her best sad expression.

"Mother is staying in the family house in Switzerland," she replies.

Astoria, always quick to catch, nods and makes a well calculated grimace. "She had Dragon Pox," her sister says and slowly shakes his head, as if it were a difficult subject to talk about, "it was a terrible moment for everyone."

"Oh dear," blurts out Lady Narcissa.

Daphne knows her mother and is the type of woman who grew up repudiating divorcees and would never publicize her state of having a choice. Her father, an Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries, is so secretive that he could grow wrinkles and die of old age before he says anything about the already signed and filed divorce papers.

His mother is no longer a part of House Greengrass, and while none of the remaining members have a problem with it being known, a dinner with the Malfoy family is not the most flattering way to go. It would tarnish any reputation her mother has in pureblood society and that is a horrible thought.

"But Anna is already recovered." her father looks at the occupants of the table, his expression is calmer, like that of a man who is still affected by his wife's closeness to death and still feels affected by it. “The healer said that a few time away from all her social outings was necessary and she has always loved that house... It was a wedding gift” he explains.

There is no such house.

Lady Narcissa gives her best wishes for recovery and the conversation shifts to quieter topics as the elves serve dessert. Of course, it's the moment when Draco looks at Harry and, in his loudest voice, asks:

"Why are you so familiar with my fiancee, Potter?"

“There is a problem?” Lucius's soft accent echoes through the room.

"Harry is my friend, Draco," Daphne answers simply.

The blond wrinkles his nose. And her father, her own father, says, "I didn't know you knew Harry Potter."

Daphne and Harry share a look.

"Sometimes we study together in the library," says Harry. It's not a complete truth, but they have been seen together in the place by at least one person in the place to make it an obvious conclusion. “Daphne is very good at history.”

"And Harry is obsessed with Runes.I forgot to menciont it before, father, his favorite book is the same as yours.”

Her father looks at Potter in surprise and, instantly, the two engage in a conversation about their thoughts on the use of blood in runic language.

"Do you understand anything they say?" Astoria whispers to her.

“Nothing.” 

The runes have never sparked an interest in Daphne, and she is content to chat quietly with her sister about other topics. Lady Narcissa is the only one paying attention to the exchange of words with amussed interest, while Lucius and Draco chat about Quidditch.

After dinner is over, her father and Lord Malfoy meet in the blond's office. The rest of them move to the living room, where her sister actually pulls Harry by the arm into a corner and their talk seems to go well because of the smiles exchanged.

"You'll still be my friend even if you're Potter's too, right?" Draco questions, his nose wrinkled in concern. 

She pushes his insecurity away with a smile.

_“Always.”_

The moment her father walks into the room with a stony expression, the same face he uses every morning when going to a work full of secrets, Daphne sees her suspicions confirmed. They share a look and, with that, her father knows that she is aware of what happened inside.

"It was a wonderful evening, Lady Narcissa," she tells her hostess because she knows that her father will no longer be staying in this particular family's home.

They head to the fireplace and, amid the goodbyes, she approaches the Potter heir.

"Lucius is the type of person who does favors to collect at his convenience later," she warns him in his ear and he smiles at her. “Be careful, Harry.”

"I realized that very quickly," he whispers, "but thank you."

When they return home, her sister begins to remove her dress as she runs up the stairs to her room, showing her bare torso to all the scandalized portraits along the way.

"Astoria! What did I said about nudity?!” Her father massages his temples and her sister giggles in the background, the sound of her shoes meeting the floor as she goes away. The man sighs and looks at Daphne. “What are you thinking?”

Daphne shrugs, an action for which she received many reprimands from her etiquette teacher in her childhood, and squeezes her father's hand between hers.

"It's okay," she assures him. “Mother was the one who instigated the bethrothal, anyway.”

He sighs again. “You know I only want the best for you and your sister,” she nods and he gently stroke her hair. “Good” then, his brown gaze gets a similar light to Astoria's eyes when she wants to joke with Daphne and is the first time she has seen that expression on her father face. “I'm afraid I have to ask... how do you feel about Heir Potter? I have to agree with Astoria, he looks quite h-

“No! Father!” The blond man rise a amussed eyebrown to Daphne horrified face. “Harry's just a friend”

“A good friend? Or a very good friend? In my ages there was a difference...

Daphne hides her laugh on her hand and, for the first time in a while, she's happy to see her father eyes so bright.

An at the next society party that summer, the Parkinsons celebrate the recent bethrothal contract between their youngest daughter and the Malfoy heir. 

.

One afternoon, Sirius arrives at the manor carrying many, many school books. Remus comes after him, looking exasperated at The Monster Book of Monsters trying to eat his hands.

"So," says Sirius, "I didn't know what electives you were going to take so I bought all the third-year material ..." Sirius's eyes look past Harry and he smiles. “Cissa! France treated you well? Do I see a little Dragon next to you...?” 

Harry turns around and Lady Malfoy and Draco come to the hall to see what the fuss is about.

"France was wonderful, cousin," the woman draws her words, "Tell me, why exactly did you buy all this?"

"Godfather duties. I also brought things to the little Dragon!” Sirius sighs. “Look at me, I just need a belly and I'll be Santa Claus with all this presents.” 

"Santa who?"

"Muggle reference," Harry answers and smiles at the utter disgust on both Malfoy's faces.

.

In his last week at Malfoy Manor, Harry places a sock among Lord Malfoy's documents and, quite simply, tricks him into getting Dobby the piece of clothing.

The house-elf looks at the garment as if it were the most priceless treasure. "The master gave Dobby a sock," he says, stunned. “The master tossed the sock at Dobby and Dobby picked it up. Dobby is a free elf!”

Lord Malfoy blinks.

Dobby hugs Harry around the waist. "Harry Potter is much great than Dobby thought!" he exclaims. “Goodbye Harry Potter!”

Then, with a 'plop' sound, Dobby disappears.

Lord Malfoy snaps out of his stupor and, despite speaking harshly to Harry for his actions, the Potter thinks he sees some pride in those gray eyes for managing to fool him.

"You owe me a house elf."

“Ok, Lord Malfoy”

"You're being punished for this litte trick"

“Ok, Lord Malfoy"

"Go to your room and write an essay of all the ways this plan of yours could had go wrong." 

“Ok, Lord Malfoy.

Lord Malfoy takes a deep breath and pinches the tip of his nose. “And Harry,” the man says as he is about to walk out the door. “...from now on, you will call me Lucius.”

“Ok, L— You know what? I think I like the sound of 'Uncle Lucius' better.” He admits and shoots out before the man can answer.

Harry smiles all the way to his room.

.

There is a kind of winged horse pulling the carriages that lead to the castle. Their body are skeletal, a face with sharp features and wings that remind him of a bat.

Weren't the carriages moving by themselves last year? Harry looks around, prepared to ask someone about this new development, but stops. People get into the carriages, chatting and laughing, ignoring the creatures as if they weren't there.

And Harry sees her. The girl has long curly blonde hair, the color of a slightly muddy daffodil, which is tied messily behind her back. Around her neck hangs a necklace of beer caps, her wand beside her left ear for safekeeping, her feet are barefoot and her hands caress one of the creatures head. People gives the girl strange looks and they walk away from her, whispering and laughing as they go to other carriages.

He approaches her.

"Hello, Harry Potter," she greets in a dreamy voice.

"Your feet ... are they cold?"

"Quite a bit," she answers, and her pale silvery eyes look at him as if she could see directly into his soul. “Unfortunately, all my shoes have mysteriously disappeared.” She gets close a little suspiciously. “I suspect nargles are behind it. You have to be careful with them, they like to steal from people. And they fear radishes,” she adds, holding up her earring so he can see it.

Harry nods slowly. He hadn't heard of nargles before, but it seems like something that would exist in the Wizarding World. The skeletal horse flaps its wings, and the blonde pushes her hand away after giving it one last caress.

“What are they?”

"They're called Thestral," the blonde answers. ”They are quite gentle, although people shy away from them for being... different.”

The Thestral moves toward Harry, and the teen runs his fingers over the crown of the head. It's soft and Harry's magic tickles all over his skin with the touch.

"But why doesn't anyone else see them?"

"They can only be seen by those who have witnessed death and understand its meaning."

Harry bites his lip, and thinks of white fur stained with crimson. He slowly moves away from the Thestral.

“Do you know someone who's dead?”

"My mother," The girl nods, her gaze lost in the air. “She was an extraordinary witch. Very fond of her experiments, until one went wrong. I was nine years old.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yes. It was pretty awful.” She pauses for a second and blinks, her eyes a little brighter. “Oh, no. I'm sorry your friend broke his soul. Finding out must have been terrible for you.

“How do you-

“Harry! There you are” Hermione Granger's voice cuts the air. “Ron and I have been looking everywhere. What are you doing with Loony Lovegood?”

“How did you called her?”

"My name is Luna Lovegood," she corrects, her eyes starting to lose their glow from a few seconds ago. “It was a great delighting to meet you, my Lord. Blessed be your magic.”

"Blessed be the blood," he whispers, instantly feeling the buzz of magic vibrating the earth beneath his feet-

Did she say 'my lord'?

Luna gives him a dreamy smile and walks away, leaving behind a still confused Harry and a Hermione with her lips pursed.

"What was that, Harry? Do you know is a pureblood thing?” she says with a little bit of disgust, as if the exchange is inconceivable to her.

"Er... I thought it was a magical greeting?" He asks, playing a fool.

She snorts and starts pulling him into another carriage. "No, it's just something they do because they think they're better than us. It's stupid. But now you know it.”

Harry feels a twinge of annoyance for the first time towards his friend, but keeps it under control. He would understand if she didn't know about the magical traditions —but to know it and still not like it because it's something the purebloods do? How can Hermione call 'stupid' to be blessed by magic itself? 

"Why did you call her Loony?" he ask then.

"She's weird." Hermione says. “Harry, the girl wasn't even wearing shoes”

“Luna said the nargles stole them."

"And what's that about nargles? They don't exist. It's surprising that she's in Ravenclaw hearing that ...

He disconnects at that moment, Hermione's words becoming a background noise to his thoughts. Has his friend always been so quick to judge people? Yes, whispers a voice in his mind that assimilates a lot to Daphne's. And so Harry remembers how harshly Hermione talked about the blonde Slytherin in first year after a difference of opinion between the two.

Sometimes he wonders if it was not that moment —seeing as a girl whose only mistake had been to speak in favor of the veelas rights and receiving detention by Professor McGonagall as a result— when he began to have doubts about telling his friends the identity of his soulmate. 

“Harry! Are you listening to me?”

"Just ... you don't need to be rude, Mione," he mutters and enters the carriage where Ron is waiting for them.

A splash of crimson invades Hermione's cheeks as she follows him, but Harry remains thoughtful the rest of the way to the castle.

.

In the first week of third year, Harry realizes how isolated he has been from the rest of the school when he tries to get a tutor for Ancient Runes just to discovers how many people he doesn't know. 

During the first Divination class, in which his teacher looks at him with terrified eyes and proclaims that death awaits him, Harry hears a conversation between the Patil twins about how sixth-year students give tutory as fifth-year and seventh years spend their time stressed by the OWL'S and the NEWT'S.

There is still a bit of a fear for him among the Hufflepuffs, who mostly avoid him and there are no sixth year of that house giving tutory for Ancient Runes anyway. Every Ravenclaw he talks to rejects him when they learn that he doesn't even take the class, and Harry doesn't dare to ask any member of his own house for fear that someone will tell McGonagall.

Which is the reason why Harry ends up exposing his knowledge of Ancient Runes to Adrian Pucey in the school gardens, the only serpent willing to give him more than two minutes of his time.

"You're cute, Potter," Adrian says when Harry finishes and doesn't take his eyes off the parchment he's writing on. “Have someone told you before?”

"... You're not my type."

"Good, because you're not mine either." Adrian drops the quill and lifts the paper with a strange glint in his dark eyes. “I don't give tutory to mudbloods.”

And he leaves.

Harry clings to the grass under his fingers and decides, at that very moment, that he doesn't need help to advance his knowledge. He can draw runes in the air and conduct his magic through them, he easily understands the theories of various important thinkers on the subject, and is also capable of understanding runes without needing a dictionary with English translations.

He will be the best Ancient Runes master the Wizarding World has ever seen.

And nothing and no one, not even McGonagall refusing to take the class and all available tutors refusing to accept him, are going to stop Harry.

Inadvertently, his nails dig into his palms hard enough to draw blood, which fall to the earth. Thus, the most archaic and simplest type of magical oath is carried out without words.

Magic is based on the intention of the wearer, and when Harry Potter's wishes call, his magic responds.

.

His boggart is the body of Tom Riddle, pale and scared in the Chamber of Secrets, his eyes lifeless as Harry himself holds the diary and the basilisk tusk above it. And he squeezes it, and he squeezes it, and he squeezes it in one terrible repetition, until his soulmate disappears into the shattered pages.

Fear doesn't favor Tom's features, Harry decides along with the nasty sour swallow in his throat.

"Riddikulus!" He exclaims, and with the wave of his wand the image in front of him turns into an explosion of confetti.

Thanks to every deity, the class is more excited to share the story of Professor Snape dressed as Neville's grandmother than anything else, and his friends assume that Harry is still dealing with what happened in the Chamber of Secrets without suspecting the truth. 

"I would have liked to face the boggart too," Hermione mutters as she leaves, disappointed. 

"And what would it have become?" Ron scoffs. “A nine?”

Remus Lupin doesn't ask him questions, although the confussion that swim in his puzzled gaze are enough to assure him that the man has no idea of Lord Voldemort's true identity, or that Harry's greatest fear is seeing him die by his own hands.

.

Harry meets Luna Lovegood again in a desolate corridor. Her feet are still bare and she gives him a full tooth smile.

"Are you a seer?"

Luna giggles, a bell-like sound. "It took you a long time to realize it, my Lord."

"I'm not a lord."

"No, you're not." She looks up at him, her eyes bright and full of secrets. ”Do you want to go feed the Thestrals?”

.

Third year passes without life-threatening incidents, it becomes his favorite year just for that.

.

The first week of the summer holidays, Harry has to return with the Dursleys to not raise any suspicion of Mrs. Figg and, in turn, of Dumbledore, so he does everything possible to show his face in the house full of cats and catches up with the events of the Muggle world on the tv in their living room.

Hermione sends him a box of sugar-free candy to nibble on, receives fresh scones from Hagrid as well as a fruitcake baked by Mrs. Weasley and delivered by the elder owl of the family, Errol.

Tibby comes every morning, when the Dursleys haven't woken up yet, and leaves his breakfast on his desk as if he still lives with the Malfoys. Sometimes she brings a letter from some of the family members, who, despite never expressing it, care about Harry well-being with his 'filthy muggles' relatives.

Sometimes Tibby tells him about Dobby, and how he has found it difficult to find decent people willing to pay a house elf for his services.

Sirius and Remus have been concerned about Harry staying with the Dursleys this summer, giving him a mirror that connects to one in their possession and they use it to call him every day.

“Are you alright?” Sirius asks at least twice during each call. “Have they been feeding you? You tell me if they haven't and I'll go there and curse that entire family. I'm a Black, after all, and I can't believe I'm saying this but I have a great knowledge of curses.”

Remus appears behind Sirius, and runs his pink scarred arms across the man's chest. "Did I hear you say the C word?"

“... No? Remus, I am a reformed man. I would never-

"Because I'm afraid we'll cursing those muggles if they treat you badly, pup," Remus interrupts and gives Harry a smile through the mirror.

Sirius grins. "Merlin's Balls, for a moment I thought you were going to scold me."

The werewolf gives him a quick kiss on the cheeks in response. Harry, because he actually enjoys being annoying sometimes, says, "Ew."

"When you get a partner you won't 'Ew' at us," Sirius answers and stops, his eyes wide open. "... Don't even think about having one! You're still a little boy in my eyes! I forbid you! Oh Merlin, do you even know about safe sex? What if you let someone pregnant? Remus, as the responsible one you...”

But, unfortunately, Remus and Harry are already laughing their heads off.

.

Dudley shoves him while drying the dishes and one falls to the ground in slow motion in front of his eyes until it breaks. His cousin's lips twitch with amussement at the image and Harry hears the brush of Uncle Vernon's belt buckle as he slides it out of his pants.

There's a ringing in his ears that doesn't allow them to tune into Uncle Vernon's angry bellows, all his attention focused on the purple spots dotting his face. The arm with the belt is up and, without thinking, Harry raises his hand and draws a series of runes with the index finger.

In the air, the tip of his finger glows and leaves a silver trail that hangs between him and his uncle. The buzzing in his ears disappears, and for a heartbeat, all is silent.

Uncle Vernon is petrified.

Dudley screams.

Harry spends a whole minute, patiently waiting for the arrival of a letter for the illegal use of magic outside Hogwarts and, especially, in front of muggles.

None arrive.

He knows the trail is in the wands, and it brokes when a wizard comes of age at seventeen. The main reason he freely practices his magic at Malfoy Manor is that if a minor does magic in a place filled with it and with another magical adult around it's impossible for the ministry to know the identity of the spellcaster.

But at Number Four, Privet Drive, there are no other wizards.

This means no wand in between, no ministry on his doorstep?

Dudley continues to shout to his father's paralyzed body, his face purple and belt a few inches from the runes in the air.

"Oh, shut up," he says to Dudley. So far he has only practiced with his wand, so it takes him several minutes to fix his uncle.

He laughs when the man thaws, and his eyes jump from Harry to his hand, with visible fear. It's a horrible, poisonuos feeling that motivates him, he knows it, but he can't help it.

Keeps laughing.

The Dursleys let him go free around the house and Harry can only practice wandless runic magic in pure obsession. It's easier than using his wand, for some reason, and it helps bypass ministry monitoring.

Harry loves it.

So when a letter from the Weasleys arrives at the Dursleys' house by mail, he has no trouble with his uncles for the mere mention of the word magic. Arthur Weasley got tickets from his Ministry connections to the Quidditch World Cup finals and Harry is invited to go with them.

If there's one thing Harry loves more than ancient runes, it's Quidditch. The feeling of being in the air, away from the rest of the world and the caress of the wind in his hair is one of his favorite things. It's the reason why his godfather, Sirius Balck, has already bought him tickets. 

And two more for Ron and Hermione, also.

Harry weighs the options of who to give them to, while his relatives are still eating grapefruit for breakfast to the utter chagrin of Uncle Vernon and Dudley, and heads to the living room and calls Hermione.

His friend's voice reaches his ears at the third tone: "You have communicated with the Granger family...”

"Hermione," he greets, and he hears a surprised gasp from the other side.

"Harry!" She gets excited. “How? Did your uncles give you permission to use the phone? I would have called you if I knew I could, because after what happened with Ron at the beginning of last summer ...

Before Sirius and Lucius reached his door, his best friend had called the Dursleys' house, and the moment he said he knew Harry from Hogwarts, Uncle Vernon was pissed off.

Hermione, of course, didn't try to call because she's a bit more tactful than Ron when it comes to Harry's family.

"They're out," he lies. “Did the Weasleys also invite you to the Cup?”

“Yes. I'm going to their house this afternoon and I'll stay for the rest of the summer.” A thud is heard and his friend curses on the other end of the phone. “I'm sorry about that," Hermione sighs. " I'm painting my toenails and the paint just fell off.”

"Oh.”

"And I still have to pack," Hermione sighs. “I know from Ron that the Weasleys will come looking for you whether your uncles want to or not, so ... See you soon? Mom is calling me.

“Yeah”

"Well, my mom just came in," she says quickly, "Bye!"

He doesn't have time to answer before the call is disconnected.

As he goes up to his room, a feathered gray tennis ball-like owl awaits him, buzzing all over the space —his name is "Pig," and that's a very peculiar name for one of his kind. What if gives him some kind of animal identity problems?— with a letter from Ron about the Quidditch finals between Ireland and Bulgaria, about Harry going to the Burrow and how his brother Percy has a job in the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

The next day, Mr. Weasley blows up the Dursleys' electric stove and the twins play a prank on Dudley.

While dining with the Weasley family (and Hermione) Harry can't help but compare the bustle of the red-haired family with the serene elegance of the Malfoy's. It is a world of difference, and he himself doesn't know which one he likes best.

He misses the coldness of the mansion, with its centuries of magic and ancient history, the forests that surround it, the almost endless dishes for each entry—And maybe he does miss the blond people and their even blondier peacocks as well, but he won't admit it aloud—. However, the endless arguments between Ron and Hermione, the twins who can't stop teasing Percy every second, and the laughter from everyone at the table alongside the warm air smelling of grass and honeysuckle is also enjoyable.

Harry watches the gnomes leap among the rose bushes in the Burrow's courtyard, laughing like mad and running in front of Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, while Mrs. Weasley talks to her older children on one side of the table and on the other side Mr. Weasley discusses with Percy ministry issues that Harry probably pay more attention to than he should.

They arrive at the Cup in portkey with Amos and Cedric Diggory the next day, with the exception of Bill, Charlie and Percy who will come by way of appearance. 

"We couldn't have a better place!" Mr. Weasley exclaims when they reach the parcel of land he rented. “Magic is forbidden, so we're gonna set up this shop like Muggles.” he continues with emotion “It shouldn't be very difficult, muggles do it all the time ... 

Ron, Hermione and Harry walk through the sea of tents that are visible at sunrise as they load kettles and pans in search of water. Everywhere, witches and wizards come out of their tents starting to prepare breakfast, giving them sidelong glances as they light fires with their wands while others see the matchboxes skeptical and hear foreing conversation from inside the tents as they pass. 

The camp area that supports Ireland is full of green shamrocks for good luck and the part that supports Bulgaria hang the same poster with a sullen face with bushy black eyebrows that only blinks and frowns in the image .

"It's Viktor Krum!" Ron explains excitedly. ”The Bulgarian Seeker!”

When they get to the queue to carry water, there are two wizards in front of them in line. One has a long patterned robe and the other shows him a pair of pants desperately:

"Muggle women wear those things, Archie," says the one with the pants, "Not men. Please put this on.”

"I'm not going to wear it," Archie answers annoyed, "I like when the air goes down there”

"Excuse me, Mr. Archie?" Harry says. Both wizards blink at him. “I couldn't help listening to your conversation. I'm muggle raised, and men can wear dresses too. Many people is going to give you strange looks and maybe call you names, sure, but you can say freedom of expression exist and they will leave you alone in the best case.”

Archie grins at the man with the pants. "I'm going to keep my robe because I have freedom of expression!" He exclaims triumphantly.

At that moment, Hermione giggles uncontrollably at the wide-eyed look the man with the pants gives to Harry. 

Upon returning with the water to the camp, there are new tents in front of a street leading to the stadium and people from the ministry walk past them. Mr. Weasley explains to Harry and Hermione who is each person that greets them.

“That's Cuthber Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office ... That one is Gilbert Wimple, from the Committee of Experimental Charms ... and there go Bode and Croaker,” This time he whispers the words, almost afraid of being heard "... _Unspeakables_."

That's a word Harry has never heard before and Hermione also blinks in confusion. “What is that?”

"Unspeakable. They work for the Department of Mysteries, the absolute secret. I don't even know what they're doing down there ...

As the day progresses and the night covers everyone like a blanket, the excitement is unstoppable among the thousands of wizards and witches. Vendors are displayed at every turn with their shopping carts of Bulgarian team scarves printed with real roaring lions, pointy shamrock hats that move, flags of both countries singing the national anthem as they waved, and collectible figures of famous players.

Ron buys a green hat and a Krum figurine. However, the redhead looks disdainfully at the shamrocks on his hat when he realizes that he has nothing else left to buy omniculars.

"I want three," Harry says and ignores Ron's blush. “C'mon mate, it's a gift," he adds, putting an omnicular in both Ron's and Hermione's hands. “You deserve it, Ronnie.”

"Thanks, Harriet," he whispers, hugging him by the shoulders as Hermione gives them a smile from ear to ear.

They all head to the stadium.

“Top seats!” says the witch who checks their tickets. “Main grandstand, straight up, Arthur.”

For the next half hour, the place fills with the most important people of the Wizarding World of Britain. When Cornelius Fudge arrives, Percy Weasley bows so exaggeratedly that his glasses fall to the floor. The man, to the surprise of the red-haired family and Hermione, greets Harry with a fatherly gesture and introduces him to the Minister of Bulgaria, who shakes Harry's hand and, seeing the scar, gets excited and starts saying things in his language.

"I'm truly sorry, Minister," he says, because it seems that Fudge is content to ignore the cascade of foreign words, "But I don't understand."

"You know Harry, I'm not very good at languages," Fudge sighs, "For these things I already have Barty Crouch ... Ah, there is Lucius."

Harry and his friends turn to see the Malfoy family, all pale skinned, sharp features, and platinum blonde hair, approaching to the empty seats in the second row with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Beside Lord Malfoy, clad in a stunning dark green velvet robe trimmed with gold, is Harry's soulmate. 

Voldemort's —brown?—eyes land on Harry and gives him the smallest of nods in greeting. The teen's heart begins to race in his chest at the sight of the man and he grabs Ron's arm, the one closest to him, as if it were a life preserver.

“Is that your godfather?” Ron whispers to him. “Why he's with the Malfoys?”

"They're family," Harry manages to answer.

Lady Narcissa wrinkles her face as if something smells foul under her nose the moment she sees the British Minister of Magic. Sirius's face lights up when he sees Harry just like Remus's. 

“Ah, Cornelius!” Lucius Malfoy greets in a tone that to anybody would seem that he's fond of the minister. “How are you? You meet Narcissa and Draco. And my wife's cousin, Lord Sirius of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black ... and his fiancé, Remus Lupin. And of course, you already know Lord Slytherin.

Hermione's eyes widen at the name and Ron squeezes Harry's shoulder back. "Oh, Merlin," he whispers sadly. “It's another _slimy snake.”_

Thus, the hidden mark on Harry's side burns from the words.

Fudge greets them all. "How are you, Narcissa? And you, Lord Black, Mr Lupin? And Lord Slytherin, it's always a pleasure. Let me introduce you to Mr. Oblansk ... Obalonsk ... well, the Bulgarian Minister. Oh, and this is Arthur Weasley.”

Voldemort says something in Bulgarian to Mr. Oblansk, and the man quickly speaks to him. The Dark Lord's lips twitch in amusement at the torrent of words and the two part from the group to the seats with the rest of the Bulgarian politicians.

“Arthur," Lucius says softly, "What did you have to sell to be here? I guess pixies didn't bring tickets to your house.”

The man gives Mr. Weasley a disdainful look, his cold eyes roaming all the boys before settling on Harry for a second, in which they soften, and he goes to their seats followed by his family. 

Sirius, seeing that the minister's attention is elsewhere, raises his eyebrows at Harry.

“Why, no hugs for me?” He asks with a fake pout and Harry throws himself at him.

Remus pats Harry's head next to them and says, "Hi, pup."

At that moment, Ludo Bagman carries his wand to his neck and his voice rises above the din of the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Welcome to the forty-twenty-second edition of the Quidditch World Cup!”

The screams in the stands grow louder, with discordant national anthems adding to the ruckus. 

"And now, without further ado, let me introduce… the Bulgarian team mascots!"

"I wonder what they brought," Mr. Weasley mutters, leaning forward in his seat. “Aaah!” Suddenly he takes off his glasses and wipes his shirt. “Veelas!”

Veelas are beautiful women who dance in the middle of the stadium. That's all Harry sees: they are very pretty and that's it. Veelas doesn't produce any feelings in him unlike the various men and women in all the stands who start drooling and doing strange things to get the veelas attention.

Harry looks around the main stand to see Sirius and Remus chatting quietly in their seats without paying much attention to the dancing women. Hermione snorts at Ron's. Ginny's face is pinkier than before, enchanted by the veelas dance. The Malfoys seem bored, specially Draco.

Lord Voldemort's eyes are looking at him when he turns around. Harry's magic sing, tickling his skin with the man's attention. And the rest of the dance, crimsom and emeral eyes stare at each other.

When the music stop, the Dark Lord's lips gives Harry a full-tooth smile and looks away.

Shouts of protest are raised throughout the stadium. Beside him, Ron rips the shamrocks in his hat to shreds, and Mr. Weasley takes them from his hands. 

The game starts like no other Harry has seen before. The speed of the players is incredible and Ireland's chasers, perfectly coordinated, are playing as if they can read minds, which could be plausible since the mental arts exist in the Wizarding World.

At some point, Quigley, the Irish Beater, throws a bludger at Krum's face and breaks his nose just as Lynch, thr other seeker, begins to fall through the air. Only half the crowd seems to notice what is happening as the Irish yell for their seeker who's being chased by a bleeding Krum.

"They're going to crash!" Hermione exclaims.

“No! They won't!” Ron replies.

But Lynch does. He collides with the ground, a sonorous crack as he meet the earth. Krum, nose bleeding, rises across the field with a flash of gold in his hand.

"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman yells, puzzled. “Krum caught the snitch but Ireland wins! Merlin, who expected it?”

And Sirius Black howls with excitement. "In your face, Malfoy! I told you! I said Ireland would win but the Bulgarians were going to catch the snitch!”

Lucius sighs and Lady Narcissa lets out the first real laugh Harry has ever seen her give. "He told you," the woman agrees, accepting with only a little hesitation the clash of fists Sirius offers her.

"It was magnificent, wasn't it?" He hears Hermione say at the same time as an accentuated lugubrious voice comments:

"Vell, ve fought bravely.” Is the Minister Oblansk. 

Fudge says with anger. ”You can speak English! And you've been letting me mime everything all day!"

"Vell, it vos very funny."

Soon everything ends. The night air carries strident songs as they return to the tents. Sirius and Remus accompany them, taking the time to be with Harry and talk to Mr. Weasley, whom they already knew.

Everyone sits down for a cup of hot chocolate before Sirius and Remus head off to their own camp and the night drags on between talks. At some point, Hermione pulls a half-asleep Ginny into her tent but everyone continues their chatting.

"Do you know something?" Sirius says to Ron. “You remind me of James.”

"P-potter?" Ron's eyes go wide.

"Yep," he answers. “Without all the red hair and freckles, sure, but Harry told me his adventures and you've always been there for him, just like James was for me. I think you're a good friend” The man pats the redhead on the back and walks away to talk to Charlie about dragons.

Ron blinks several times and then gives Harry the smallest of smiles. He returns it.

Which, of course, is when the screaming begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long chapter, the next one is gonna be shorter


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's gonna happen," she murmurs, and a lonely tear slides down her face. “It's gonna happen”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to howmanyshipscanashippership for beta-reading ❤ this chapter wouldn't be the same without the lovely help!!!

_There is panic everywhere._

The chants and laughter of celebration turn to screams of desperation as people try to escape into the woods, fleeing away from masked and hooded wizards who are torturing a muggle family over their heads, cackling raucously.

The adults are quick to grab their wands and send them into the woods as they join the fray in which aurors begin to appear.

"I wanna vomit," he hears Ron mutter, watching a child swing his head in the air, "they're disgusting."

Advancing towards the forest Harry stumbles, being pushed between trees and people who are trying to escape. He can hear yells and sobs through the night air. 

By the time he managed to get away from the crowd, along with Ron and Hermione, he's out of the woods and in a field full of Death Eaters.

A woman trips in his field of vision, her wand flying from her hand getting lost in the gloom, and a spell reaches her shortly after. Cackling with delight, a masked man has his wand hand pointed at her and his other hand disappears into his pants as her screams grow louder.

"Oh my God" Hermione gasps.

Harry isn't even thinking, his face contorting in disgust at the scene. He raises his wand and casts a slashing spell straight at the Death Eater's lower parts.

The man falls to his knees, the splashing sound of blood and the cry of pain escaping his scratchy throat cutting through the air. In contrast, the woman's wide eyes leap over them, her screams muted.

Ron tries to help her.

The woman crawls back, her dark skin stained from the scarlet flecks that splattered across her face and her hands clinging to the earth beneath them.

"We're not gonna hurt you." Ron's voice is calm, yet loud enough to be heard over the background noise, and he raises his empty palms to show that he doesn't have a wand. “Can we help you get to the forest? There aren't ... it's just safer there.”

Slowly, the woman nods and allows the redhead to come closer. He looks to them for help and soon the trio helps the woman to woods. They can barely see each other's faces, a lumos on Hermione's wand allowing them to see their way.

“Hi— Would you let me to heal you?” says Hermione very soflty as she examines the woman's broken leg. "I understand you must be scared, we are scared too and you're probably thinking I'm too younger, but I know some healing spells."

The woman's gaze studies Hermione, her chest up and down fastly by her erratic breathing, and gives a small nod of permission. The muggleborn sighs in relief.

"Thank you," the woman says when the brunette finishes, her voice faltering and she looks at the three of them. Harry can see how her gaze changes when her eyes connect with the scar on his forehead. “Harry Potter and...”

“Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.”

"... and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley," she repeats. “Thank you. I will never forget your help.”

The woman gives them a grateful smile and is soon heading deeper into the forest.

“Now what?”

"Mr. Weasley said we've need to stay in the woods”

"Yes, but—”

”You're not thinking about—"

“—Are you?”

The three share a look and, coordinated, they shoot to the camp.

Harry runs through the burning shops, putting out fires with his wand casting Aguamenti in one hand and runes drawning Laguz in the other. Hermione lashes out at the terror-spreading Death Eaters and Ron helps others to escape by pointing them into the forest.

At one point, Harry stops noticing a black blur amid the chaos.

It's a lady- a widow. The edges of her black robe float a few inches from the ground, her black, waist length hair flying loose in the wind, and a black veil hiding her face. The hands, the only visible trace of skin, are pale and held tightly together.

Suddenly, a spell passes Harry, coming from his back. It manages to leave a stinging cut on his cheek, the crimson line sliding down his skin to his shirt collar.

He doesn't have time to react when the characteristic sound of an explosion is heard and Harry ducks as an expansive wave launches a spectacle of organs and blood in all directions.

Harry turns to see a Death Eater a few feet from him, his shattered body amidst dirt, grass and the river of blood gathering in a puddle around him. Harry's stomach twists at the sight.

Behind the Death Eater, Lord Voldemort has his wand raised and a cruel expression on his face.

Harry looks at him wide-eyed.

The man's gaze inspects his body and stretches out a finger, running it down his cheek, staining it with blood before bringing the finger to his lips. A pink tongue catches the finger, cleaning it. Harry swallows, feeling a tug on his stomach and a warm tingle at the magic that runs through his skin.

And then, there is no wound.

"Why so confused, Harry?” He raises an eyebrow in amusement, as if one of his Death Eaters isn't a sanguinolent mass of flesh at his feet.

Harry blinks.

Another Death Eater sees them and his spell heads to Voldemort's left, but the man continues smirking at him. Harry wishes with all his might that what he's going to do will turn out well. He quickly draws a shield of runes that absorb the spell like a sponge.

The rune shield fires the spell back, and the Death Eater writhes on the floor sobbing from a curse he doesn't recognize.

Voldemort's lips fall.

" _Interesting,_ " he hisses, looking from Harry to the Death Eater, his eyes, still brown, taking on a gleam and the teenager cannot figure out what that means. 

Quickly, the Dark Lord continues to cast spells at anyone in his path. Despite the swift movements, they are almost reluctant and, unlike the other Death Eater, he only shoots them with the stunner charm.

“What's happening?”

"Isn't it obvious, Harry? When the cat is away, the mice shall play,” he says, and his eyes connect with the shape of an approaching Death Eater.

One wave of his hand and the Death Eater lifts into the air with wandless magic, which reminds the teenager suspiciously of Darth Vader. "Avery, how strange to see you here ... ah, surprised to see your Lord in this unauthorized raid?”

The man's nostrils expand and the glamor in his eyes instantly falls, red with fury. "I smell guilt," Voldemort says. “There is a foul smell of guilt in the air. Is it you, Avery?” With a wave of his hand, the Death Eater falls to the ground with a thud.

Avery, trembling, glides across the ground until he is at Voldemort's robes.

"My Lord," Avery pleads. “Please, forgive me. _Please, please, please_.”

Lord Voldemort seems even angrier. “You dare to beg me-

Harry doesn't hear the rest of Voldemort answer — although it must be terrible from the scream that is heard— as his attention shifts to the sight of Hermione running to the section where the Quidditch players who competed were spending the night. Like the rest of the camp, the tents are on fire and screams and sobs can be heard.

There are no aurors in that part of the camp.

There is a spell dance on the other side of the field, between a masked man and a someone he recognizes: Viktor Krum.

And while out of the corner of his eye he can see Ron with carrying a girl, her pajama gown covered in crimson and tear stains on her face, towards the safety of the forest, Hermione goes with her wand lit to help a group of players who give everything they can to protect themselves from the Death Eaters around them.

Krum is alone.

The spells that fly between the two are of the darkest magic. The speed of the Bulgarian is fascinating, his wand movements almost as agile as he was in the air. However, the Death Eater is also swift in his shields and even more so in his hexes.

As the spells are cast and dodged between the two, Harry takes advantage of the fact that the Death Eater is distracted by the Bulgarian to draw his wand.

"Depulso," Harry yells and the Death Eater is blown back through the air. A terrible thud is heard as his skull hits the ground.

In the sky, an image blazing in a haze of greenish smoke is painted between the clouds, a colossal skull composed of what looks like emerald stars with a serpent protrunding from its mouth like a tongue, the brilliance that it gives off whipping the field with sudden illumination. 

It's the dark mark.

There is another wave of hysterical screaming.

When Harry turns around, the place where Lord Voldemort stood a few seconds ago is empty and the characteristic sound of apparition is heard as every Death Eater, not dead, injured or passed out, escape almost instantly.

"Thank you," he hears Krum say in his harsh, breathless accent.

Harry helps him to stand carefully. “Your welcome”

“Harry!” Hermione's voice slices through the air towards them. There is a bleeding wound on her arm, but she still runs and hugs him tightly. “Thank God you are okay. Have you seen Ron?”

She pulls away and looks at him for a second, making sure he isn't hurt before her eyes widening at the collar of Harry's shirt, his clavicle exposed as is the mark that kisses the skin there.

Harry hides it with a spell with as fast as he can and buttons his shirt up with shaking fingers.

”You have ...? Why—”

"—No," he says, "I'm going to explain it. But not yet.”

Hermione looks from his covered neck to his pleading eyes. She frowns, clearly disagreeing, but nods.

"I saw Ron take a girl into the woods," Harry adds, "I think she's hurt."

At that moment, Krum, who is apparently still with them, asks Hermione in his accented voice if he can help to heal her arm.

The witch blinks.

"It von't hurt," says the Bulgarian, and with a wave of the wand, Hermione is no longer bleeding.

“Oh thank you"

"Viktor," he introduces himself, his intense dark eyes on Hermione, who blushes a little at the attention.

"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger,” she squeezes the Bulgarian's hand “And this is Harry Potter.”

Harry gives a little wave.

"Thank you for your help," repeats the Bulgarian. “Blessed be your magic.” The Bulgarian says to both of them, though his eyes don't leave Hermione. 

"Blessed be the blood," Harry says, feeling his own icy magic run through his body. He gives Hermione's arm a squeeze.

"B-bless the blood," she answers through her teeth. Then she blinks in surprise.

The Bulgarian doesn't notice, and simply gives Hermione another handshake before turning to his injured teammates, the lines on his forehead wrinkled.

They head into the forest and Harry can see the witch's frown.

"It's not a pureblood thing," He says, "He blessed our magic. The greet is longer but everyone shortens or changes it. Is a wizardry religion thing. Like saying God bless you? I don't really know, the Dursleys never took me to church”

"I could feel the magic," she whispers. Hermione looks ecstatic, her arm sleeve stained with dried blood and her eyes sparkling. “Any book I read described that, everything I found said it was an ancient practices that everyone forgot except for the purebloods. And i thought—”

“—I know.”

"And the Weasleys don't. They don’t do it. It's so strange.”

“They...”

Harry is interrupted when he sees Ron, standing with the blonde girl he was carrying earlier and a group of girls in nightgowns talking around him. The redhead seems relieved to see them emerge from the trees.

“Harry! Hermione!” Ron yells and waves at them. The girl mimics him with an adorable French accent. “This is Gabrielle. Gabrielle, these are my friends. And they ... " he points to the other girls, who continue talking, “I don't understand what they're saying, but they're very pretty.”

The other girls whisper to each other about a 'Madame Maxime' and glare at them as an older version of Gabrielle runs through the trees with an elegance that should be impossible and calls out the girl's name.

There is a bit of reunion sobbing and the girl explains to the older one in hasty French what happened to her by pointing at Ron multiple times throughout.

Harry doesn't understand a word.

"You saved my little sister," Gabrielle's older sister, Fleur, says in more accented English than the little girl's. “You didn't have to do it and you still saved her.”

And Ron blushes when the girl kisses both of his cheeks.

The trio part ways with the French group when they find a serious-looking Remus Lupin, that lunges at Harry the moment he sees him and hugs him tightly. Upon returning to their tents, the rest of the Weasleys await them alongside a worried-looking Sirius Black.

"You won't leave my sight again," Sirius murmurs in his head. “Are you okay? Please, tell me you weren’t found by any Death Eaters.”

Ron starts to say, "Well ..." but falls silent when Hermione gives him a look.

"By Merlin, Padfoot, let Harry breathe."

"Go bite someone else, will you? Harry likes my hug a lot.” Sirius tightens his grip just a bit more.

Remus rolls his eyes and joins the hug. "... You just made a wolf joke."

“And you liked it.”

“... Maybe.”

"Do you know I'm still here, right?" Harry has to say, because he's caught between the two men casting loving glances over his head.

"Aww, we didn't forget about you."

Sirius's hands ruffle his hair.

"Yeah, we're glad you're okay, Harry." 

.

 _‘Everything is fine’,_ a voice has whispered in her mind for years. _‘You stopped them.’_

The conviction of the words is sometimes enough to convince her, but not today. Not when she sees him, the tousled black hair on his head, the bright green eyes like the killing curse, free from the sharpness and darkness she came to know, the pair of round glasses, and, higher up, the lightning shaped scar that cuts his forehead.

She sees him and the invisible seams on her chest open and sink, unleashing a twisted pain that paralyzes her entire body at his presence. The images, unavoidably resurface from the recesses of her head, they repeat in the front of her, flashing in her mind:

The wind caresses her loose hair, free in its race through the fresh grass. The smiles shared between the two as the alcohol distills from their pores. The promises of protection and their love in common. Red eyes. Teeth digging into her silver-plated flesh. Milky skin turning scarlet with each passing second. The black pouring out from the soul of the creature with cursed gaze. _Bitterness, betrayal, anger._ Blue eyes, sparkling in their mania for control. The hysterical screams of children trying to be heroes.

"He's my bestfriend," he says to the monster. And he, with his seductive tricks, infects her with his smile.

The memory changes.

"We'll do it together," her savior whispers in her ear, and she drinks from the words like a thirsty woman a drop of water. “I can help you in your revenge.”

She recalls the taste of victory against the cursed-eyes of the creature when she comes to her senses. She finds herself drinking the most exquisite crimson from a pale neck. Her tongue chases every last drop on her lips and she sighs.

She knows that the teenager she saw is the one of her memories. All her life she has been waiting for an apparition, translucent in the fantasies of her mind, and now it manifested to her in the form of a boy whose power is capable of shaking a non-beating heart.

Her own magic is unleashed, hungry for one particular desire, as a presence materializes in front of her and a scent reaches her nostrils. Blood runs down her chin, and she giggles now with delight.

"I found him," she says to him, her eyes blackened with madness. “I found him.”

And her savior smiles.

.

Mrs. Weasley awaits them in the front garden when they all return to The Burrow, the lines of her face wrinkled in concern, her eyes red, and a copy of the Daily Prophet in her hands.

“You're fine!” She murmurs in relief, rushing to hug each of the redheaded heads in desperation. “You are all alive!”

The newspaper falls from her hands and squeezes Fred and George so tightly that their heads collide.

“Stop! Mom!”

She sobs a little. "... and to think that I scolded you about your exams before leaving. Oh, you are alive, my children ...

"Come on, Molly, you see they're all fine," Mr. Weasley says soothingly.

Mrs. Weasley looks a little suspicious at Sirius and Remus. And the second they declare their plans to take Harry with them, her eyes narrow.

And they start to argue.

Instantly, all the other Weasleys go up to their rooms and Ron pulls Harry and Hermione into his.

"He's not your son." They still manage to hear Sirius, the sound almost distant.

“He's like a son to me!” Mrs. Weasley replies fiercely. ”Who else he has?”

“Us!” This time Remus is the one who answers, a hint of temper seeping into his voice.

"He didn’t have either of you when one of you was locked up in Azkaban for 11 years and the other was in a self-imposed exile. You don't even have permission to raise him. Harry will be better off here.”

"Harry will come with us."

The discussion continues, loud voices mingling with each other, and suddenly there is silence.

"They cast a spell," Hermione points out. Then she looks at Harry. “Are you going to tell us?”

Ron looks between them, confused. "Tell what?"

Harry swallows and pulls up his shirt, the soul marks splattering the skin of his stomach, the ones that say all the bad things about his soulmate.

"I have a soulmate." He looks to the Chudley Canons poster on the wall so he doesn't have to see the faces of his friends. “And… and he… ” Harry takes a deep breath, trying to say the words out loud. “… He is Lord Voldemort.”

A gasp is heard.

Hermione lunges at him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. Ron does the same from the side, trying to give comfort through his touch.

"I know it must been hard for you to tell us this. But now we're here for you, you're not alone. And we can find a way to separate you," Hermione says, “We will get a way, Harry.”

"I knew you were going to say that." He puts his head in his hands and admits in a low voice, "I can't try to break the bond."

"Don't say that, mate. We have Hermione and you know that she-”

Harry cuts him off. "I want him," he admits and Harry's stomach turns over when he sees his friends’ expressions; his confession echoes around the room. “I want —I want the monster that killed my parents as my soulmate.”

The words hang in the room like a storm, crackling in their gray folds. A concoction of emotions courses through him, a punch, underlined by anxiety, thick and heavy, pulling at his nerves. 

“Harry,” Hermione says and stiffens. “I—I don’t understand.”

“I want him”

"Bloody Hell." Ron's touch drifts away so fast he stumbles, his big blue eyes blinking in shock. “Bloody Hell” he repeats.

"Ronnie?" Harry hates how his voice sounds so small.

But Ron isn't looking at him.

"I... I..." He doesn't finish saying it before leaving the room.

Hermione doesn't look at him either, but her arms still offer comfort.

"He'll come around," she says.

"W-what if he doesn't?"

"He'll come around," Hermione repeats. “I don't think I understand the reason why ... you want him. I know that sometimes I can be very intense in what I think, or very harsh when I judge, I know, but you are my friend, Harry, and I wont leave you for something you cannot help to feel.”

And Harry knows he doesn't deserve it.

"I never thought to tell you," he confesses. “Do you remember our first year, when you read about veelas and had the biggest argument in the world with Daphne Greengrass from Slytherin? I ... I could never stop thinking about that. They punished her for giving her point of view and, for a long time, that ... that made me distrust how everyone would react to knowing who my soulmate is.”

Hermione and Ron have always been there for him. And what had Harry done? He lied to them for three years. To them he had the wrong opinions of, especially with Hermione. He doesn't deserve the girl's consolation, nor the salty drops that stain his shirt from her face.

He doesn't deserve it.

"I was a bad friend, lying to you and Ron. I judged you for years for something you did when you were still a little girl in a new world with very clear ideas of right and wrong. And, for a while, I thought I could tell Ron, but ... but not you.”

Hermione takes a deep breath, a sound that tears at Harry's heart because of how painful it is. "Ron didn't react the way you thought, did he?" She asks in a tight voice.

"He reacted just the way I thought." Harry's lips stretch into a grimace. “I'm so sorry, Hermione. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

She doesn't say anything for a long time, her breathing matching his and tickling the skin on his neck.

"You know, my mom once told me that all the boys are idiots," the witch says then, her voice cracking. 

“I mean, all sounds a little... 

“Yeah, not all of them. But you—” Hermione left out a humorless laugh, and says, ”—You're an idiot, Harry James Potter.”

And she hugs him tighter.

.

Ron doesn't look at him when he says goodbye to all the Weasleys. He doesn't look at him when he guides Remus to his room to pick up his trunk. He doesn't look at him when he promises everyone that he will write. He doesn't look at him walking out the door.

Ron just doesn't look at him.

And Harry feels something in his chest breaks until, at the last second, a voice yells, "Wait!"

A red blur is all he sees before Ron throws him to a hug.

“We deserve more explanations,” he says to his ear as low as posibble.

“I know”

“You're gonna tell us all you hid from us”

“I know,” he says. “I'm sorry”

"I love you, Harriet," he whispers. “And you're my best friend. Even ... even if you're a bloody liar who wants ... You-Know-Who. You're my friend.”

"I love you too, Ronnie, I love you too.”

.

Sirius, Remus and Harry appear in a dark alley. As they walk, his godfather hands him a small piece of parchment. Written in the man's script, it reads: The Black Family House is located at 12 Grimmauld Place. 

They stop between the number 11 and the number 13. Understanding what is happening, Harry concentrates on the words and instantly a house materializes between the odd-numbered buildings, with dark paint and windows plunged into gloom.

"Since it was built, my ancestors placed the strongest of the fidelius charms on this house," explains his godfather. “Only a Black can know the secret” he winks at him.

The door is black, with a silver knocker in the shape of a twisted serpent, without keyholes or handles. Sirius simply stands in front of the door and, with a click, it opens for them.

The moment Harry steps inside, he can feel the buzz of magic that bathes the walls, ancient and full of power despite the weak appearance of the house.

The interior is as depressing as its exterior. The hall is in complete darkness and he can smell moisture, dust, and a sweetish aroma that seems ingrained in the building. His eyes adjust to the darkness just as a hissing sound breaks the silence and the gas lamps along the walls come to life, illuminating the tattered wallpaper. The corridor reflects a large chandelier and blackish portraits that hang on its walls.

"Come with me, Harry, we'll show your room." Remus uses his enhanced strength to load Harry's trunk carefully.

When they reach the end of the hall, Sirius signals them to be quiet. They pass a pair of heavy velvet curtains. After passing a huge umbrella that looks like it was made from the severed leg of a troll, they head upstairs. There is a row of shrunken heads on the wall, framed in plaques, of house elves.

"What was behind the curtains down there was my mother's portrait," Sirius explains then. “If there is any noise, it opens and Merlin does not want her to see us. So whatever you do, don't be too loud in the hallway. And I can't believe I'm saying this,” he mutters sadly. “I used to make all the noise I could just to piss her off.”

They turn left at the top of the stairs and Sirius says, "These are the family rooms. There's mine from school on the left, the one from my brother on the right. And here's yours.” 

Harry's room is dark and creepy, but more than scaring him it gives him a feeling of tranquility. It has a large green canopy bed. There is also a desk, on which he places Hedwig's cage, and a window lets the slightest bit of moonlight in through its threadbare curtains.

"Harry?" Remus calls from the door shortly after. “Would you like accompany me to the basement for a moment? Sirius doesn't like going down there, and we need more pots.”

They walk to a door at the far end of the entry hall, and down a set of narrow stone stairs as they go to the basement and the house’s kitchen. Though less ornate than the floors above, the kitchen is still large, with a fireplace at the far end. Iron pans hang from the ceiling above, and a long wooden table sits in the centre of the room, large enough to fit a couple dozen people around it for a meal.

The basement, just off the kitchen, is a dark pantry. The walls below are bare stone rather than papered, and the wooden floor is not carpeted. Remus goes to an unmarked door, where there are all kinds of things piled up. The werewolf begins to collect the pots he came for and hands Harry some. They go back the same way and go to the kitchen when Remus stops.

"I forgot the ladle in the magic item closet. It is technically the one that is going to do the job"

"I can go find it," Harry offers and retraces his steps.

When he grabs the ladle, a watch of all things catches his eye. It looks a bit strange, and its golden glow stands out in the dirty and sad place, Harry doesn't know why he is taking it but he feels an urge to hang it around his neck and that is what he does.

“What is it?” He asks Sirius when he gets back to the kitchen.

His godfather look at it with confusion. "I've never seen that one day in my life.” He grins. “You know what? You can have it. So you always know the time.”

In the background, Remus is stirring pots and plates and seems quite distressed by what he's doing. Harry, who has spent most of his life cooking for the Dursleys, is about to offer to help when Sirius hugs him by the shoulders.

"The only thing Moony can cook well is hot chocolate," his godfather whispers conspiratorially.

Remus rolls his eyes across the room. “Exclaimed the prince who always lets the water burn.” 

Sirius does a dramatically gasp.

"Lies," the Sirius utter. “Harry, do not belive a word”

"I remember that time ...”

"You promised never to talk about that time, Remus!"

The werewolf snorts a fond laugh.

"Come on," Sirius says to Harry then. “There is something I wanna show you.”

Its a tapestry.

It looks incredibly old, although the golden thread on which it was embroidered manages to show a family tree dating back to the Middle Ages. With big words on top of everything, Harry reads:

**_THE ANCIENT AND MOST NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK_ **

"Did they disinheritanced you?" Harry questions, reaching out to gently touch the blackened spot that once held the image of his godfather's face.

"My mother did that, the lovely woman," Sirius replies. “And for a long time I believed so. But it was only my mother who disowned me and burned me from the tree after I fled. Grandfather, as Head of House, was the only one with the power to do it me and he never did” Sirius lets out a hollow laugh, as if he almost didn't know how to feel about that yet. “Despite everything I did, the old man kept me as his heir.”

"It must have hurt," Harry says. “That your mother turned her back on you.”

“Honestly? I didn't even want to be here anymore. I spent years thinking that I was so far apart that I couldn't feel when the family magic was ripped from me. Of course, I was never really expelled and I still have the Black curse.

"The Black Curse?"

"It's part of family magic," the man explains. “My grandfather used to say that when a Black man is born, Fate tosses a coin in the air and everything is decided: on one side is metamorphomagic, the ability to shiftshape, and on the other is the most terrible of madness. Metamorphomagic has not been seen in decades except in my cousin Andromeda's daughter.”

"Lady Malfoy's sister," Harry whispers, seeing the dark spot where the woman's face should be. “Did they disown her?”

"Andy put love before family," and Sirius is smiling fondly now. “Her soulmate is a muggle-born.”

Harry smiles too, at how brave Andromeda Black must have been to go against all of her family's beliefs and choose her soulmate over everything else.

Sirius squeezes his shoulder. "Anyways, the important tapestry, where you can still see my handsome face, is at the Black Manor."

"What did you do when you left?"

"In the summer I stayed with your family. Even after moving to a small place with the money my Uncle Alphard gave me, I was always welcome for Sunday meals.”

"Was there a time ... when you missed them?"

Sirius caresses his fingers over a face very similar to his, but younger, whose picture is right next to the one with his name.

"Regulus Arcturus Black," reads Harry, with a birth date and a death date of fourteen years ago. Did you miss him then?”

"He was my little brother," Sirius answers, his voice hoarse. “I didn't show it then, but yeah, I loved him and miss him even more. I was really tough on Reggie before I left. He was my mother's perfect son, as she loved to remember me”

“How did he die?”

"The ... the fool joined the Death Eaters. I bet my parents thought he was a proper hero by joining Voldemort's cause.”

"Did an auror kill him?"

"No," Sirius murmurs. “I think if that had been the case I would be behind bars again.” A tear slides down the man's cheek. “No, I don't know what happened. I want to believe that Voldemort killed him, or that he died on his orders, but one day he just vanished and ...”

Harry hugs him and Sirius clings to him tightly. When Remus enters the room, Sirius gives him a tearful look over Harry's shoulders.

"I'll go make chocolate," he announces.

Sirius cries a little louder.

.

There is a hand on her neck, lifting her pale hair and whispering words she ignores in favor of the lines of light that extend and expand and connect with each other in front of her. She extends her fingers to one of the darkest lines, the one that has always been easiest for her to watch even if it is full of gaps and confusion.

It's the line that sings to her magic, that draws her in and keeps her awake every night.

It's the line that shouldn't exist, but does it anyway.

It's the line of her Lord.

He's dirty and battered, laughing and in love, broken and forgotten. He's wild and free and full of youth. He's smiling at her.

"It's gonna happen," she murmurs, and a lonely tear slides down her face. “It's gonna happen”

"Pandora would be proud of you, little moon," her father's voice is saying, and her skin shudders from the coldness of the pendant that once belonged to her mother and her grandma before her is placed on her neck. Its a triangle, with a circle and a line in the middle. _The Deathly Hallows_ symbol. “She would be very proud.”

And Luna Lovegood just hums, lost in the ins and outs of what she sees.

.

In the early morning, Harry leaves his room to the bathroom when he meets the house elf.

Except for the grimy dishcloth tied around his waist, he is naked. He looks old, with bloodshot eyes and a watery gray, with a pointed nose and wrinkled skin. He's bald like all house elves, but around his ears grows a wisp of white hair.

He shuffles his feet, hunched over, slow and stubborn as he mutters to himself.

"Oh, Kreacher is so sorry, Master Regulus. No matter how hard he tried, Kreacher can't destroy it. And the traitorous master has returned, oh, if my lady knew, oh, how she would cry.

The house elf carries a locket in his hands, the dark diary-like magic of which makes Harry gasp when his own magic reaches it. What is a horcrux doing here of all places?

”And here's a new boy, he looks like one of my lady's brothers, a grandson perhaps? But oh, Kreacher doesn't want hope. Kreacher doesn't know his name, what is he doing here? Kreacher doesn't know.”

"My name is Harry Potter," he says as the elf blinks his big watery eyes at him. “I'm staying here until I have to go back to Hogwarts.”

“Harry Potter? Kreacher can see the scar, it must be true, the boy who defeated the Dark Lord. Kreacher wonders how he did it.”

From the elf's words, the locket's magic is now activated with a stinging rage.

"I didn't defeat him, Kreacher. The Dark Lord still lives” he explains carefully, more to the horcrux than the one holding it.

However, the words seem to distress the elf.

"Kreacher doesn't want to hear the halfblood words. Oh Master Regulus, Keacher is so sorry. No matter how hard Kreacher tried, Master Regulus died. And Kreacher is a bad elf, yes, very bad. Kreacher cannot destroy it.”

Harry hears the elf whimper over Sirius's brother and an iron weight settles on his stomach when he understands the meaning of the words.

Regulus Black did die because of Voldemort. He probably discovered the horcruxes, which would explain what one does in the Black house, and the elf wants to fulfill his master's goal by destroying it.

Harry freezes, blinking as Kreacer continues down the hall and enters a room with Regulus's name marked on the door, still muttering.

He goes to the bathroom and returns to his room not knowing what to do. He swore to himself to protect the diary, a piece of his soulmate's life, and right now he just feels the need to scream at the top of his lungs at his indecision.

 _“I couldn't save you, James, like I couldn't save Reggie,”_ Sirius whispered to his parents' grave last summer.

And just hours ago, the man had cried into Harry's shirt for his dead brother, for not knowing how he got to that destination. A brother who died trying to end Harry's soulmate.

Does he tell Sirius what he has just discovered and allow him to get the closure he so deserves? Does he keep quiet and allow Kreacher to continue his attempts to destroy the locket?

Does he take the locket and hide it from the world like he did with the diary?

No, Harry decides with a sigh. He won't take away Sirius's chance to find out what happened.

He's going to tell him.

Harry is no longer the same kid in his cupboard under the stairs, staring at the spiders in the corner of the ceiling and wishing that his soulmate would come rescue him from his relatives.

Yet he watches the spiders on the ceiling weave their webs, his fingers fiddle with the watch in his hands, and for the first time in a while, he wishes he had met his soulmate at a time when he wasn't the man he'd came to know, at a time when thousands had not died because of him.

The wheels on the watch lock at **15:08**

And the world of Harry Potter explodes.

.

Miles away, Daphne Greengrass is reading the story of the soulmate bond between the wizard Merlin and King Arthur Pendragon when her sister walks into her room, her body shaking.

“What...?”

"I found this," Astoria says. It's a simple dark folder, looking a bit old, with big red letters emblazoned in the center screaming: **_CLASSIFIED_**. “Dad left it in the drawing room. And he forgot the repellent spell.”

"Astoria! You could get father in trouble!”

"I know, but I just thought it would be fun to read! Nobody in the wizarding world knows what they do there!”

"Put it back right now."

Astoria walks a few steps back, creating a distance between the file and Daphne's hands. She opens it, and begins to read aloud.

“Identity of the Subject: Classified. Nickname: Black Rose. Interrogation method ... ” Her sister's voice falters and she looks hard at Daphne's eyes. “Cruciatus and Imperius. Subject is immune to the "Imperius" curse. The subject's body present—”

Daphne snatches the file from her hands, the pages colliding together as she closed it.

Astoria's face is paler than usual. "Father is bad?"

"No," she says, but her voice doesn't come out as sure as he planned. She looks at the file, a sour taste beginning to build on her palate. “Put that back where it was. We can get in trouble.”

Astoria's face twitches, her fingers shaking as she takes the file. "Do you really want to ignore this?"

"It could have been a dark wizard”

“A dark wizard. Who cares if it was a dark wizard? _This is a person!_ A person that was tortured.”

“What do you think people that did this would do if someone unallowed knows? Keep quiet and put it back where you found it, please”

Astoria face twist and does it. 

Daphne takes her book in her hands, reading without actually reading the words. Interrogation method, she repeats. Interrogation method.

“Father is bad?” It's all her mind can think of when the world begins to blur. The watch that hasn't been taken off since the day her mother left begins to shake and shine on her neck.

The book falls to the floor with a thud and everything explodes into particles of gold around her.

“Daphne? What was that noise?” Astoria Greengrass enters the room minutes later, still shaken by her discovery. ”Daphne...? _What the hell?_.”

And Fate laughs with delight when its pieces fall in their designated places.

.

He walks calmly, his gait silenced by the falling rain, like a predator following the very step of his unconscious victim. He can describe the smell that rises in the air at the touch of the copious drops that crash against the ground and slide through the rubble of the street.

The boy's walk is confident, his feet caressing each stone that passes as if he had formed and placed them himself so that only he has the right of walking on them. Raven hair sticks to the exquisite pale face, a curl of contempt on his mouth as the drops fall on his neck. On his finger is a ring, a peculiar jewel with a stone that has made him his newest target.

There are other children in the streets, their limbs twisted and the flesh stuck to their bones. The dirt on their clothes is washed away by rain as they dig through trash and ruin for a bone to sink their teeth into, full of devastation.

But the boy continues in his walk, indifference in each of his disdainful features.

He is young, but he looks at everyone in his path as if they were annoying insects that buzz too close to him.

And muggles, with their sad faces and pleas for an act of kindness, are exactly that.

He is pleased that the boy understands.

Just as he crosses a corner that leads to a desolate street, he raises his wand willing to get what he came for when little golden particles form in front of him and another, shorter boy materializes.

There is a watch hanging from his neck to his hands and the deepest confusion in the line that adorns his face.

The boy has green eyes like the Killing Curse and a scar that marks his forehead, the threads of light that form around each person of the blackest color he has ever seen.

Gellert Grindelwald smirks at this new development.

With a quick wave of his hand, the boy falls unconscious into his arms, silently.

And when Tom Marvolo Riddle looks back, there is only one empty street.

Still raining.

.

The first thing Harry feels is coldness, seated on a chair that holds his paralyzed limbs. That's the second thing he notices: he can't move.

The third thing he notices is the man sitting on a chair across from him, separated by a wooden table. His hair is pale and his eyes, one grey and one dark, sparkle over his own. The man's long fingers hold the watch that ...

_The watch that did this!_

"Ah, I see you already woke up" The man says, the most slightest trace of a foreign accent that curves around his words. “Has anyone ever told you that you have the most charming future? I can see your death.”

“Who you are? Let me go!”

“Tut-tut. You have to answer my question first. Don't you know manners, boy?”

Harry grit his teeth. “—Someone did tell me”.

"There you have. It wasn't so hard, was it?” A smirk dances on the man's lips, wide and wicked. "Now, to answer your question: My name is Gellert Grindelwald. And, I believe, we'll get to know each other very well"

Harry's mind can only supply a repetition of this: _ShitShitShit._

The Dark Lord's eyes sparkle. "Shall we begin?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAND TIME TRAVEL IS HERE. i hope y'all liked it.
> 
> I'm not sure when the next chapter will be done, so I apologize if it happens to be a long wait for it. 
> 
> Again, a lot of thank you to howmanyshipscanashippership for the beta :)
> 
> i'll be reading you! <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was in the middle of an important mission when you, wraped in golden light, were left in front of me by this charming watch. I would have killed you, but death has already given you its mark. And, your resemblance to the Potter family is ...
> 
> Harry holds his breath and Grindelwald smiles, handsome with features as sharp as a hunting knife.
> 
> "... Fascinating," the man continues, and his fingers hold the watch swinging in the air. “'I am wondering, did I witness a time travel?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my less favourite chapter so far, but I hope you found it a good reading.

This is the only way to explain it: _Harry Potter is screwed._

Of all things he knows about the blond man sitting across from him, none is beneficial to his situation.

He was never interested in a Dark Lord defeated decades before his birth or the full story of his passage through the Wizarding World.

That's something Hermione or Daphne could easily recite, but all Harry knows is that the man was defeated in a duel by Dumbledore in 1945 and that he firmly believed in the supremacy of wizards over muggles.

"I was in the middle of an important mission when you, wraped in golden light, were left in front of me by this charming watch. I would have killed you, but death has already given you its mark. And, your resemblance to the Potter family is ...

Harry holds his breath and Grindelwald smiles, handsome with features as sharp as a hunting knife.

"... Fascinating," the man continues, and his fingers hold the watch swinging in the air. “'I am wondering, did I witness a time travel?”

He is trapped, unable to move and his wand probably still rests on the desk next to Hedwig's cage.

He is screwed.

Harry didn't prepare for the cold smile on the man's face or the accented voice that nonchalantly points out how he would have killed him. Of course, Harry's aware that he's plagued with stupid thoughts, he had no reason to suspect that he would take a watch from Grimmauld Place, time travel, and be kidnapped by a Dark Lord when he went to bed last night.

However, in all the conversations Harry had with Voldemort, his magic itched and his belly fluttered, but it was due more to the nervousness of being in a room with his soulmate than the twisted feeling that settles his heart in the presence of this man.

He swallows the bile that rise up his throat and fear settles like acid into his stomach.

The man's strange eyes have a gleam in them, his gaze fixed on Harry as if they could see everything inside him and more. He feels exposed, naked despite the pajamas he had gone to bed with, under the penetrating gaze of the Dark Lord.

"Are you willing to tell what appears to be a wonderful story or should I find out by other means, boy?"

Harry, with a frown on his forehead and a scowl on his lips, stares back at him.

"You'll be disappointed."

The man laughs, low and soft. The sound is melodious, pleasing to his ears, and still elicits a caress of terror that creeps up his back, chilling as it echoes through the room. "Only I can be a judge of that," he says.

Grindelwald spreads his magic, heavy tendrils crawling up the walls and throwing Harry's head back, digging into his cheeks like invisible fingers.

The man's magic is not an abrasive blaze like Voldemort's, soothing against Harry's icy magic core; instead, it is a soft whisper that slowly caresses its magic. It is magnetizing, dulling his senses and keeping his attention even if he doesn't wants it.

"I would have killed you—," the man repeats, "—but you piqued my interest ... Make it worth my time, boy, and maybe you can delay your death a little longer."

Harry remains silent.

Grindelwald runs a hand through his blonde curls, pulling them back, and sighs. "Then you leave me no choice."

He tries to look elsewhere, but the magic keeps him staring into the Dark Lord's bicolor eyes. Beyond the initial flash of curiosity there is something mischievous about them, something cold and calculating. Grindelwald's wand flutters in his field of vision, the tip viciously illuminated on his forehead. Harry's blood runs cold, his own magic tries to rise up as the panic embraces his galloping heart but stops, trying to choose between keep being lulled by the other's magic or fighting it.

_**NO!** _

And Grindelwald whispers: _"Legilimens."_

.

When Daphne Greengrass was a little girl on her father's lap, he used to tell her stories before going to sleep. It was at the time when she shared a room with her sister Astoria, always scared by the darkness of hers.

She remembers her father's reading voice speaking beside her bed, his dark blond hair shining amid the red and orange flashes of the lamp in the room. Astoria would snuggle into Daphne's side, her legs tangled in the older's arm as she rested her head next to hers.

Her sister loved the same stories: those full of action and romance and a bit of tragedy in between. Now that she's grown up, Astoria will deny it for centuries, but on the inside she has always been a hopeless romantic.

"I don't care which one you tell," Daphne used to say to her father, her sheet curled between her chest and the sleep far away from her eyes.

Secretly, she has always liked a story, even now: Eloise Mintumble's.

Daphne can still recall what it felt like when she heard the name many years ago, the only time she dared to skip one of her lessons and instead walk around her house in idleness.

She was seven years old and ran through the long corridors of the place, hiding behind large objects and other passageways from her straight-back, tight-lipped governess who called her name.

Daphne wanted to be an adventurer that day, and she felt like one going to her father's office which was always full of magical and fascinating things that she was forbidden to touch. And a shiny one caught her eye. It was small, a beatiful necklace shaped like an hourglass. There was an inscription engraved between the circles around it, and she read them almost mesmerized:

"I mark the hours, every one, nor have I yet outrun the Sun. My use and value, unto you, are gauged by what you have to do." she read aloud, her fingers caressing the words and-

A tug on her arm pulled her away from the object, and two dark eyes stared back at her.

“Why are you here?” Augustus Rookwood, a co-worker of her father and her godfather, had hoarsely told her.

Little Daphne gulped, her heart pounding so hard she thought the other could hear it too.

"I got lost on the way to my lesson," she lied. “I adore my governess. I learned so many interesting things the last days—”

"—You know better than trying to fool me, little laurel," replied her godfather, using the nickname he had given her for as long as she could remember. Despite the softness of his monotonous words, he still seemed accusing.

A small conversation cut through the tense air, reaching their ears from the hallway door to the office. Her godfather put a finger onto her lips, silencing Daphne's response and his wand sparked over her.

“Gus?” Her father exclaimed, still out in the hall. ”Digging through my things again?”

Augustus was silent, placing the time-turner where it had previously rested. He sat over her father's desk, picked up one of the books and began to read it casually. 

A heartbeat later, her father and a towering figure entered. They both wore the uniform of the Department of Mysteries, but the unknown man's robe was black in contrast to the dark blue cloth that his father and godfather wore.

They ignored Daphne in the corner of the room. 

Later, studying spell books for an answer to that she would understand that she was hidden due to an enchantment.

The conversation that followed was long and she can only recall her father's admiring face upon hearing the silky voice of the unknown man and the flash of disgust in his godfather's eyes, who never looked up from his book at all.

She also remembers the glow of the man's fangs because that was the first time she had seen a vampire in her life.

When the unknown man left, Agustus Rookwood stepped away from the desk.

"Egorov is a genius, Gus," her father had told him. “Why hasn't anyone heard of what he does?”

"Only people he approves of can enter the secret." Her godfather looked directly at Daphne and waved his wand. Her father's eyes flew from the man to his daughter. ”She had the time-turner, Hadrian.”

His father's expression turned to a smooth stone, his eyes hard and icy on hers. It is the expression that even now, years after the event, she fears more than many other things. “Did you use it?” He questioned, his voice several degrees colder.

She had deny it effusively, her small head bouncing from side to side. "I apologize for my actions," Daphne had said, as her governess used to tell her what to do if she made a mistake.

"What did you understood of the thing we talked about?"

“There is a great mission?” Daphne wrinkled her nose in mock confusion.

Deceiving a good liar is difficult—which is why her godfather saw past her act everytime time— but her father's eyes instantly softened, the change so fast it baffled her.

"Yes, from now on I will work to fulfill a great mission," his father had whispered and his godfather had rolled his eyes behind him. “Please don't do this again. You don't want to be another Eloise Mintumble, do you?”

"Eloise Mintumble?"

Her father stroked her hair. "It will be a story for tonight. Now, get back to your duties.”

And he, as promised, had told her that night about an Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries who in 1899 during an experiment with time magic, traveled back in time to 1402. Eloise Mintumble was trapped for five days in the past, and when she finally was able to travel to the present and be rescued, her body had aged five centuries and she died shortly after. Because of her interactions with people in the past, at least twenty-five of their descendants disappeared, becoming the first known cases of unborn people.

Something that his father called an alternative timeline had been created.

Even Astoria had blinked the sleep out of her eyes in interest. “What is time?” She had asked in her childish voice, hiding a yawn in her hand.

"You know what's time, silly," Daphne had replied, "It's when hours go by."

Astoria had pinched her knee in response. "I'm talking about Time—" she looked at her father, "—is it like the Magic and Fate that mother's friend, the adivination seller, talks about? Is Time going to punish us if we do something wrong?”

Their father had explained many things to them, some that she found very logical in her seven-year-old mind and others that made no sense at all to her.

And Daphne listened to each word seriously, knowing very well what her father was trying to make them understand: Time is a dangerous enemy.

Now clad only in her white pajama nightgown and the clock that made the world around her explode in gold before trading her room for dirt and trees, there is a weight on her stomach that warns her something bad is going on.

She blinks in confusion, looking around for something to indicate what just happened to her.

“Astoria!” Daphne exclaims, because only she and her sister were at home when everything exploded. “Astoria!”

The rustling of the tree leaves being caressed by the wind is her only answer. 

Daphne walks.

Somewhere in the forest, a bird sings.

Her own magic stirs restlessly, in bewilderment, and her hands constantly search for the wand she should have in the sheath she always wears around her left arm before stopping.

The wand that's on the nightstand in her room.

The sun shines high in the blue-painted sky, a contrast to the starless night she left behind. Her bare feet dig into every little stone she walks on and the twigs scrape her knees the further she goes. If Daphne looks up, she is capable of see the building that rises far ahead.

She knows these trees, she knows where this path leads, she recognizes the tingling magic of these grounds.

It's Malfoy Manor.

And Daphne is afraid of what she will find here, with the magical barriers that try to avoid every step she takes towards the building. Who did the wards of the property notify when she appeared inside them? Lucius or ... or someone else?

What did the clock do and why did it take her to this place?

When she enters the gardens and doesn't find any peacocks, the real fear of what is happening begins to seep into her heart. Daphne is alone, without a wand to protect herself and wearing only a dirt-stained nightgown.

Then, she sees him:

The boy is sitting in the fresh grass, strands of dark blond hair —almost sandy— gleaming gold in the sunlight. He wears only formal trousers, a white shirt with the first two buttons loose, revealing the pale skin on his chest, and he's barefoot.

He holds a wand tha makes small green sparks dance in the air to become a skull with a snake sliding out of its mouth.

And she read The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts enough times to recognize the miniaturized version of the dark mark.

Daphne gasps.

She doesn't know if the high-pitched sound escaping her dry lips is because of the materialized shape in the air or because she knows that face. The boy is startled, the mark fading into green smoke, and points his wand at her with a distinctly wary expression.

The change in the air is not slight; it feels like a wave rushing over her, the magic of the manor singing: _Intruder. Intruder. Intruder._

“Who are you?” The boy asks, his chocolate brown eyes comically wide.

And this is the same face that she studies every day on the photos that she keeps in a box, with the stains of her fingers almost reflected in most of them by the number of times they were brushed. Daphne knows the hair, darker than anyone else in his family, the nose identical to that of his descendants and the dark eyes that stand out from all the clear gazes in the family portraits hanging on the walls of the building behind them.

This is her soulmate.

Her dead soulmate.

The realization is cold as it runs through her, making her shudder to the balls of her feet. She looks at the clock that hangs around her neck and cradles it, the sudden urge to scream lashing out at her senses.

This is Abraxas Malfoy.

"No" Daphne says before she can stop herself, "—this can't be real. This cannot be happening. No!”

Nausea gushes from her throat and she crouches on the floor, placing her head in her hands. She can feel lines of moisture on her cheeks, falling silently to the ground, and Daphne notices she's crying.

"Please, it has to be a dream. I want to wake up. Please. _Please._ ”

This is Abraxas Malfoy.

And the only way for him to be in front of her now is if ...

... Daphne traveled back in time.

"Are you feeling good, miss? What am I asking? You're obviously not good because it looks like you're going to throw up at any moment, but would you mind going to do it somewhere very far from my house?”

The magic of the manor continues to throb against her, trying to expel Daphne, but her bare toes cling tightly to the grass below.

"What are you doing here? This is private property and I don't understand how you got in. The wards allow only known magical signatures, and I've obviously never seen you, I'd remember if… ” He stops and his eyebrows pinch in indignation. “You're another one, aren't you? I can't believe it. He said I was the only one.”

What does he mean by that? Daphne clutches the watch in her hands, her heart racing in her rib cage like never before. What is she supposed to say?

Daphne rises up slowly, her stomach still turning.

"Well?" Abraxas asks icily.

"I ..." she starts to speak and cuts off her words. The boy's eyebrow goes up a little higher. “Well I ... Would you believe me if I told you I have no idea?

"You have no idea," he repeats. “You have no idea how you got into a centuries-old family magic-infused property that you obviously shouldn't be able to —Merlin, you're crying” Abraxas says as his other hand slowly lowers his wand. His voice softens just a little. “Was I too harsh on you?”

Sweet Circe, he's a Hufflepuff.

Abraxas takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and holds it out towards her, a little awkwardly. 

Daphne takes it, her soulmate's name etched in silver thread in one corner of the cloth. She remembers the story of Eloise Mintumble and clutches the handkerchief in her hand. She needs to go back to her time.

But how will Daphne get back if she doesn't know how she got there in the first place? And she had interacted with someone, what if the future has already changed irretrievably? 

"I shouldn't be here," 

“No, you definetly should not.”

The voice that says it is clearly female. She looks away from the handkerchief to see the imposing figure of a woman approaching them, her movements stealthy like those of a Nundu walking to its prey.

The woman is tall, half of her dark blonde hair hidden by a dainty hat on her head. Her waist is marked by a grayish blue dress that slides down to her knees and her gloved hands raise a dark wooden wand toward Daphne.

“Mother?” Abraxas gulps, all trace of awkwardness fading in the way his shoulders square and his stiff limbs take on a look of practiced elegance. “I thought you would be meeting Lady Lestrange and other ladies until noon.”

Lady Malfoy raises an eyebrow at her son's obvious lack of shoes and a crimson blush spreads across Abraxas' cheeks.

"I was," she says and her brown eyes look at Daphne, "But you seem unable to bear the weight of guarding the manor wards for a whole day. I had to interrupt Lady Selwyn in the middle of our meeting because the magic of the property would not fail to alert me the entry of an intruder.”

“I am sorry, mother.”

"Tell me, intruder, what brings you to the ancient grounds of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy?"

"Apparently, she doesn't know, mother." Abraxas's arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes fluttering unsure. “I think she's like me.”

The woman's eyes scan her from head to toe, noting the stains on her nightgown, every stretch of skin in sight and ending in the boy's handkerchief in her hands.

Her lips part in a disdainful grin. "The estate of the Crabbe heir is not far from here and he has a preference for blondes girls, Abraxas," she tells his son. “This girl may look like your father, but she could be one of his harlots.”

Daphne's fist clenches as she keeps the buzz of outrage out of her mask. 

Abraxas presses a spot on her waist, his eyes locked on Daphne in surprise. "You are..." The grip on Abraxas' other hand loosens and the wand hits the ground in a thud that makes her shudder. “You are my soulmate.”

How—in Circe's name—is she supposed to fix this?

.

Stained with dirt and with tree twigs stuck in her hair, Daphne sips the tea a house-elf served her as she tries to recall every little detail she knows about the 1940s.

On the table next to her is a copy of the Daily Prophet, the pages that screams about the most recent sighting of the Dark Lord Grindelwald and the date indicated by the timeline highlighted in bold mocking her at the corner of the paper. 

_It is August 15, 1943._

She knows that her grandfather and his twin sister must be close to finishing their education at Hogwarts and he still has years to meet who will be Daphne's grandmother.

As for the Malfoys, the father of her soulmate must be the current acting Lord of the house and —if her memory is anything to trust— the man had a past as many-ladies gentlemen before marrying Abraxas's mother a year after he was born. It would explain why her soulmate head to the conclusion that she was a Malfoy bastard, due to traits shared by both of her and the Malfoy's sharing Selwyn family blood and how far she came without the manor magic warning anyone her presence on the property.

To use such assumptions to her advantage is to take a path destined to fail, as a thousand ways it would be obvious that she is not a Malfoy would threaten to bring her down in seconds and she wouldn't know how to prevent Lady Malfoy from alerting the aurors about Daphne.

Time travel, no matter how the person arrived at such destination, is illegal throughout the entire Wizarding World.

Yet, Daphne is a good liar.

Inwardly, she apologizes to Harry —who is decades into the future like everyone she knows— for borrowing his life story by sobbingly recounting the loss of her parents under the hand of the Dark Lord and how the last thing she remember is wishing with all her magic to be in a safer place and waking up into the forest shortly after.

It's obvious, she explains, that the safest place was with her soulmate.

“Why would the Dark Lord be interested in killing your family?” Lady Malfoy raises an eyebrow.

Daphne presses her lips together, and takes another sip of her tea with graceful movements. "None," she declares and denies with her head slowly. “There was no reason. It could ... it could be said that they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And they suffered the consequences.”

“Does that mean you're an orphan?” Abraxas's voice makes her shudder.

It is soft and deep, and listening to it should make her feel bad but it does tingle her soulmarks. It should make her feel bad because she doesn't belong to that time. Daphne nods, unable to see anywhere other than the brown eyes on hers.

"Oh," is all the Malfoy heir responds, but his gaze drifts from her to his mother's cold face.

They both seem to have a conversation in that simple exchange of glances and the woman stands up at the end. "Follow me," she says to Daphne, and Abraxas' lips lift into a small, triumphant smile. “You'll bathe and dress appropriately to join our table” Then looks at her son. “And by Merlin's sake, go put your shoes on.”

"Thank you for your kindness, Lady Malfoy." Daphne breathes a sigh of relief as she confirms that they won't be kicking her out anytime soon. “Blessed be your magic and the magic of your blood”

Lady Malfoy's lips twist. "Blessed be the blood."

Minutes later, the hot water embraces her as she enters the bathtub and allows herself to feel the sting on her skin. She has not removed the watch, hoping that it will start to shine and return her to the time she belongs at any moment.

She cleans her hair and removes every twig between the damp-darkened strands, the water is dyed brown when she washes the dirt stains on her knees and when she finally comes out her skin is reddish in the places she carved too hard.

Why did the clock bring her back to 1943, with her soulmate and unexpectedly? Daphne doesn't recall doing anything to activate the object in her neck, too busy thinking that her father had a file declaring the torture of an individual by the Department of Mysteries.

Then the world exploded into golden particles and she fell onto the grounds of Malfoy Manor.

The memory of Astoria, pale and trembling when showing her the file makes her shudder, and Daphne opens the bathroom door leadin to a nearly empty room.

On the white sheets of the bed is a green dress, similar to the one that Lady Malfoy wore —which must be one of the woman's shrunken by spells— as well as matching shoes. She takes her time getting dressed and looks at herself in the mirror in the room, surprised to look like a girl from a photo album of her grandparents. 

Clothes in the Wizarding World have not changed dramatically over time, but the difference is still noticeable. 

As she leaves the room, Abraxas Malfoy has a raised fist a few inches from the wood of the door. His shirt is well buttoned and he wears a gray vest over it. He also has shoes on.

"Were you waiting for me?" she ask.

A blush splashes the boy's cheeks. "You are my soulmate," he says, "—I want to meet you. And you would get lost on the way.”

On any other occasion, she would hold back the smile that blooms on her face, but this time she can't help it. Daphne looks into Abraxas's puppy dog eyes and tries to remind herself: She can't be Eloise Mintumble. But isn't avoiding it a lost cause? She has already interacted too much with the Malfoys, to continue would be ... to safeguard herself.

Daphne puts a hand on Abraxas's arm. "I also want to meet you," she says. “Please, guide the way.”

"You didn't say your name," he comments when they reach the stairs. “You heard my mother say mine, so an exchange would be polite. Not that I'm trying to question you, I just figured talking might help you forget what happened to your family. Obviously you can say nothing if that's what you want. After all, information will always be one of the best weapons and you should not give it away easily.”

Abraxas looks at her expectantly, a hint of insecurity seeping into his face.

It's mind-boggling how quickly he opens his expressions to Daphne, unlike Lady Malfoy and her icy face similar to the Malfoys she knows.

When she was a ten-year-old girl for the first time meeting the Malfoy heir, she was greeted out of cold wariness by Draco and Narcissa. Her ex-fiance's mother wielded courtesy like a sharp sword and while she was supposed to try to befriend Draco, little Daphne could only look at that lady and think: I want to be her.

It took months for the Malfoys to let her pass beyond their stone walls and a year for Draco to start calling her his friend.

It is not the same with Abraxas, who allows her to observe his feelings in every gesture of his face.

"I appreciate you considering my situation," Daphne says. “But as you stated before, you are my soulmate and my magic trusted you enough to bring me here in my time of need, so I will not hold back something so simple.

My name is Daphne, and my last name— It reminds me of my family. Is it okay if I don't say it?”

The blond's smile illuminates his entire face and he gives the slightest bow with the head. "It's nice to meet you, Daphne."

His name is different when he says it, almost as if he is savoring it on his tongue. She gives him a smile. “The pleasure is all mine, Abraxas.”

The moment they enter the dining room, Lady Malfoy raises an eyebrow at Daphne's hand on her son's arm.

"It seems you are getting along." Her fingers caress the glass between her hands. “Lord Malfoy will return at the end of the week. If Abraxas' persuasive skills have improved by that time, perhaps he will let you stay, my dear”

.

During Harry's stay at Malfoy Manor the summer before his third year, he founded a book about the arts of the mind: Legilimency and Occlumency. Despite the interest it aroused in him, he never read the book in depth, only glancing at the chapters that caught his attention.

What he remember the most is a short paragraph explaining the natural Legilimens and Occlumens. Unlike people who spend years studying the arts, naturals are born with the gift of being able to read the minds of everyone around them without even trying or of possessing a mind impenetrable to legitimacy.

Harry is neither of those types.

His magic strikes against Grindelwald's intrusion, but the man ignores him like an annoying insect and methodically enters his mind snaking through his memories the same way a snake would slip into fresh grass and ...

Harry caressesing the soulmarks that kiss his skin, fantasies of escape and a happy life next to the one who did great things being repeteat between childish whispers. Ollivander uttering his first words as Harry's heart breaks at the wand shop. The people in Diagon Alley shaking his hands and sobbing for he having defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort. They whisper his name in admiration, for being the only one to survive the killing curse.

For being the Boy-Who-Lived.

A colored hum of surprise is heard in his mind, Grindelwald's voice saying words in a language Harry doesn't understand at the discovery. **Out, out, out!**

Applause from the Gryffindor table on his selection. The welcoming banquet at Hogwarts. Hermione Granger's excited murmur of Albus Dumbledore's power upon seeing the soulmarks on his wrists. Harry hiding his own marks with spells.

Dust particles floating between the bookshelves, the narrow corridors littered with ancient tomes being a hideaway from the hustle and bustle of Gryffindor Tower. Professor Quirrell, his serene crimson gaze inviting him to open up about his views that others would consider deviant.

"I think the author is convinced that vampires are monsters to eradicate."

"And you don't consider them as such?"

"Being different doesn't make you evil."

Quirrell taking off his turban. The murderer of his parents, his soulmate, saying 'join me' as the weight of the philosopher's stone burns in his pocket. Hedwig pecking his fingers.

The disdainful looks on the faces of the people of Pivet Drive.

Uncle Vernon's double chin shaking as he yelled: Freak! Harry's heart racing, his head in the dirt of the playground and his cousin Dudley's fist heading to his face. The darkness of his cupboard under the stairs. The flash of hot oil that falls on his back as Aunt Petunia swings the pan toward him. His fingers lit up with the runes that paralyze his uncle's purple face and the glee he felt at the obvious reflection of fear toward magic.

Hagrid's kind face, his thick voice saying. "Harry, you're a wizard."

Twelve-year-old Daphne Greengrass, her golden hair blowing in the wind and determination settling on her gaze as she promised to help him escape his relatives. Sirius and Remus's arms around his body, relieved sighs above his head and the feeling of warmth that clings to his heart knowing that they care about him.

Sunlight glints off the silverware in the Great Room, laughter etched into Ron and Hermione's face lines as the twins tell a particularly funny joke. Harry laughing, his ink-stained fingers and Tom Marvolo Riddle's diary sticking out of his backpack.

The petrified body of Mrs. Norris. Fear and wariness painted on the expressions of the castle students, whispers of his supposed attempt to attack a muggle-born Hufflepuff by commanding a serpent in parsel. Hermione Granger, pale and motionless between the clean sheets of the infirmary. The basilisk's teeth digging into flesh, the scarlet river, the arms of a hysterical Tom whispering spells on his skin.

Fawkes crying over the wound.

Harry lying about the fate of the diary while Headmaster Dumbledore's blue eyes sparkle with pride. “It is our choices that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities”

_A low, almost appreciative chuckle is heard in the recesses of his mind. **Out, out, out!**_

McGonagall rejecting Study of Ancient Runes as his electives. The gloom of scarlet blood running down the parchment in the library, forming numbers and names: Perevell. 

"They said he carried the favor of death, just as his blood always will" And you are his descendant.

Harry's fingers caressing the runes drawn in crimson on the ancient tome paper, magic tickling as he studied one of the few necromancer rituals whose instructions have not been burned into oblivion. The castle's pack of Threstals, reaching out to his hand for a caress during each visit with Luna Lovegood.

_Child of Death,_ the voice whispers.

And Harry finally gets his magic to hit the man. He lashes out, clinging to Grindelwald's own magic. Harry's mind receives aggressive flashes of memories that change in rapid succession:

The face of a young wizard, strands of dark red hair and penetrating familiar blue eyes, glowing with sun-kissed skin and a pang of love tied to the image. Bleeding palms pressed together as vows of loyalty are whispered to each other, soul marks on both of their wrists gleaming gold on their skin.

Dusty books and crunchy scrolls stacked on top of each other, a symbol illuminated by candlelight; the triangle, the line and the circle. Gregorovich defeated at his feet, the line of the symbol on his hands in the shape of the wand that proclaims him the most powerful wizard.

A crowded stadium of his followers, reverence and determination to paint the world in the way that his visions shows in the thousands of faces that ...

Harry snaps back to himself, his limbs still paralyzed and his breathing ragged as if he had run a marathon.

Gellert Grindelwald's pale brows meet on his forehead as he rises from his seat and circles the desk. The sparkle in the man's eyes changed, silver flecks dancing in his gaze just like Luna Lovegood's eyes use to.

He swallows.

_Grindelwald is bloody seer._

How the hell could this man lose then?

The man reaches out a hand and Harry thinks he's going to touch him when pale fingers caress the air around him, moving as if conducting an invisible orchestra that he's the only one able to hear it. 

Then Grindelwald smiles, wide and sinister.

"Do you know I could feel it, your hatred of those muggles you call relatives?" 

“I don't hate them” Harry replies. It's an obvious lie and Grindelwald knows it, judging by his soft laugh.

"Your lack of lying skills makes me wonder how aging has affected Albus." The man's voice is low, slicing through the air like a diffindo the skin. “Do you think I wear a stupid face, boy?”

“No, sir”

Grindelwald is quite a handsome man actually. Harry absentmindedly wonders if all the dark lords in history have looked this good because Voldemort was also a hot bastard in his time.

Another laugh is heard. "You're looking me in the eye."

Harry looks away, a blush attacking his cheeks as he mentally curse. He hadn't even felt the intrusion this time.

"Are you aware that the laws of any magic Ministry would have put you on trial for attacking a muggle?"

"Uncle Vernon deserved it!" 

Grindelwald's lips curl in amusement. "Of course he did. And you enjoyed feeling powerful, knowing that they were mere insects and that you should never have been afraid of them, didn't you?

And the worst part is that Harry can't completely deny it. Does he hate the Dursleys? Yes, he does.

He hates how they were able to treat a child the way they did but at the same time Harry's feelings from a childhood before the soulmarks that bloomed kisses on his skin —when he would fantasize a life where Aunt Petunia would lull him as she did with Dudley, where Uncle Vernon didn't yell at him and where his cousin would laugh with him and not at him— still remains somewhere in his heart. 

Denying the hatred that has grown like the roots of a tree between his ribcage is easy if he remembers that wish of his. But denying how much Harry giggle with joy when he realized that he could use runes to scare his family? Is impossible.

He wanted them to be afraid of him as he was afraid of them once.

He wanted them to know they couldn't have power over him anymore.

"I enjoyed it," Harry confesses and it disgusts him how he doesn't mind feeling this way.

“Do not you agree that we shouldn't hide from Muggles like cockroaches?” Grindelwald's eyes twinkle. “Do not you think magical children should grow up fearless of themselves, free to learn magic?”

"Some things are forbidden for a reason. The Statute of Secrecy—”

“—Exist to protect us?” Grindelwald snorts. “Or to protect them? What are we, if not the highest point on the natural chain?”

"B-But why?"

“Why?” Grindelwald repeats, looking at him expectantly.

"Why kill all these people just because their not magical? Muggles are... innocent.”

“They themselves oppress their own, lock them up like rats and kill them just for existing, despite being equal in the only important thing. That is the enemy. Even in your mind I could see it in your relatives, how they didn't even blink when locking their blood in a cupboard because of magic. Do not you see it, boy? Their arrogance! Their power lust! Their barbarity! How long will it take before their type uses his weapons on our type?”

"Not all of them are like the Dursley!"

Grindelwald laughs, cold and humorless.

"Are you so vain to believe you are the only wizarding child ever treated as a freak by a muggle? Or maybe you're just naive? Let me tell you story: Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was practicing her magic when a group of muggle children saw her and theyattacked her for it. The things they did are not something I want to speak out loud. It destroyed her, what they did. The girl was never right again. She wouldn't use magic, but she couldn't get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. The girl was sweet and only scared of the world, but the wound was deep. Her father, in retaliation, did to those muggles what they did to her and went to Azkaban because of it.” 

"What happened to the girl?"

“The same thing that happens to every magical children when the fear of their magic settles in their core. When the trauma experienced surpasses the breaking point. She became an Obscurial. And, in the end, she died.”

Grindelwald's gaze darkens for a few seconds. The tension in his features is just a blink, the shadow of a moth's wings against a lamp: it is there and it is not.

Harry feels the acid turn sour on his dry tongue and swallows hard. 

"There are many others who were forever ruined by muggles, children who went from being human with rights to being considered a creature that wizarding laws suggest killing. And the Ministries of Magic do nothing to fix it. No one does anything to fix it! Tell me, have things changed where you come from?”

Harry thinks of Sirius Black and his time in Azkaban for a crime he did not commit. By law, the entire Wizengamot were to judge him because of his status as the heir to an ancient pureblood lineage.

_And yet, Sirius didn't have a trial for eleven years._

Harry thinks of himself, living with the Dursleys even though any non-muggleborn wizarding child must live with the closest magical blood relationship. As Sirius's heir, Harry probably would have ended up with his godfather's grandfather, who at the time of the death of his parents was still alive. He could have been placed with the Malfoys or Sirius's disowned cousin Andromeda. He doesn't know her, but a woman married to a muggleborn and knowledgeable in wizarding traditions would have been a better choice than his muggle uncles by law. 

_And yet, Harry didn't know magic existed for eleven years._

"No," he whispers, "Nothing has changed."

Grindelwald snaps his fingers and suddenly he feels like a weight is lifting around him.

Harry can move.

The man's hand reaches for his shoulder as the world blurs and Grindelwald appears them in a different room. 

There is a fireplace whose roaring fire is lit the moment their feet touch the floor, a grand piano is kissed by the light that filters through the window in one corner and there are several burgundy armchairs. The man guides Harry's wobbly limbs to the one nearest to the fire.

He feels the pleasant warmth of the fireplace instantly envelop him. Grindelwald stands, extends one hand and places two fingers on his chin, connecting their gazes.

"What a shame, my boy, that you know how much injustice plagues our world to such a young age" he says. “The Ministry wouldn't see that necromancer blood of yours as less than a threat. You did not choose to have that inheritance, but they will not see it that way. What a shame that when you became fifteen years old they would throw you to Azkaban to receive the Dementor kiss. History repeating itself once again when a child's life is erased by something that is not its fault.”

And Harry can understand how this man sowed seeds of mistrust towards Muggles all over Europe as the sharp smiles on his face start to look good and the terror creeping up his back takes a pleasant tingle.

It makes him want to join in and accept what he says as the absolute truth, even though he is mean, vicious, and merciless. It makes him want to call him his Lord. Grindelwald's eyes seems brighter, his magic caressing Harry's as he releases his face.

Oh, Harry thinks without being as upset as he should be with the imposing figure of the man above him, he read my mind again.

"You survived the killing curse," Grindelwald adds as he crosses his legs on the chair in front of him. “I am pleased to declare myself a competent mathematician, my boy, and I wonder —what are the chances that you can survive a dementor sucking your soul?”

"I don't want to dare my luck."

“Of course you don't. Tell me, would you be willing to fight for a future where magical children will have the opportunity to grow up without knowing pain the way you have? A world where we can freely practice our magic without being pointed out and called villains for longing the freedom of who we are?”

And Harry hates how a part of him would be willing to say yes.

"Don't you consider yourself a villain?" Harry bites his tongue. 

Grindelwald, to his surprise, just smiles in amusement. "In a war there are no heroes or villains, only those with the ambition to forge a future that they deem fit for their own. And I, Mr. Rosier, am a revolutionary.”

Harry frowns. "My name is Potter."

“And yet, there is no legitimate Harry Potter at this time." The Dark Lord waves his hands and a book on the bookshelf in the living room opens, the pages bumping against each other until a photograph separates and blows to Harry's hands.

“Congratulations! From now on, you are Henry Rosier, the bastard child of Vinda Rosier and Henry Potter. Do not make that face, we can call you Harry if you want” Grindelwald adds. 

The sepia-toned photograph shows a group of people dressed in dark robes with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows engraved on their chest. He easily recognizes the shape of his great-grandfather and Vinda Rosier, each standing to the side of a Grindelwald only a few years younger than the smirking one in front of him.

_Bollocks_ Harry thinks, _the Quibler was right._

"Tell me, my boy, are you willing to join me?"

Grindelwald's hair gleams with the reddish hues of the fireplace, the magnetism of his magic making every magical item in the room purr and the swirling shadows on his beatiful sharp features alongside his glowing eyes remind him of the honey catching a fly. 

"Yes," confesses the part of Harry that is seduced by the man's softly accented words, "Lord Grindelwald"

But the man doesn't seem to mind the hands that clench into fists or the smile that is too toothy to be real. The Dark Lord is not stupid and Harry is too stubborn to let his morale wash away just because of a pretty speech.

"And still," Grindelwald whispers, his eyes on Harry's. “It awaits you a long way to the darkness.”

.

Four days pass until Lord Malfoy's arrival, in which Daphne studies each newspaper in the mansion to draw a line from the historical events she remembers. 

She stays close to Abraxas, who is content to talk for hours without stopping and exchange stories that makes them both bursts with laughs about his childhood.

On the morning of August nineteenth, Daphne finds him barefoot and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate in the garden. The sun caresses his face and he greets the light like a kneazle.

“How long are you going to watch me?” he suddendly asks and Daphne forces herself to hide the jump that produces in her body being so easily discovered.

"I wanted to ask you the hour," she lies. 

A tempus shows them both that it is barely six in the morning and there is still a whole day ahead. "I guess that watch isn't working," Abraxas points out.

"No, but it was a gift.” Daphne says. “It belonged to someone very important to me.”

Abraxas studies her expression. "A relative, a friend... a lover, perhaps?"

Daphne tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "An acquaintance of my grandfather. He died long before I got here,” she confesses. “I don't have relatives alive anymore, my friends are very difficult to contact and I haven't had a boyfriend yet. What about you?”

However, she already knows the answer.

"There are no other relatives than my parents, my friends are complicated and I haven't had a romantic relationship so far," he gives her a sideways glance. “Come with me.”

Abraxas takes her to the greenhouse, hot mug still in hand. As he opens the door a mixed scent of earth and different flowers hits Daphne's nostrils and tickles her nose.

"I like to feel the grass under my feet when I walk, in case you're wondering why I'm not wearing shoes. Mother hates it. She says it is not what a heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy should do” he murmurs. “I wanted to show you this place. Herbology is my favorite subject. Do you know that you are named after a flower?”

"I do," Daphne says. “I'm also named after a greek dryad.”

"Unfortunately, Ancient Greece is mostly my Lo—" Abraxas clears his throat, "—my friend's Tom area, so I don't know the reference."

Daphne reaches for the mug Abraxas is holding and gives him a look. The boy allows her to take it and she lets the chocolate melt on her tongue before beginning her explanation:

“The god Apollo mocked the archery and singing skills of Eros, the god of sexual attraction and love. Thus Eros fired two arrows in retaliation, one to incite love and the other to incite hatred. Apollo fell in love with Daphne and she loathed him in equal measure, setting off a chase in which Apollo would constantly beg her to marry him. In the end, Daphne was forced to sacrifice her body and become a laurel tree as the only escape from Apollo's pressures.”

Abraxas takes the mug back and looks at the thick dark liquid inside. "A story of unwanted desire.”

“You don't think it was love?” she ask, curiosity seeping into her voice.

“Just as amortentia and other potions do not produce real love, I doubt that an arrow from the god of sexual attraction would provoke anything than inordinate lust that could be misinterpreted as love. And, if anything, the initial dispute was between Eros and Apollo, Daphne was a victim.”

"I get what you mean."

"Of course you do." Abraxas smirks. Through the stained glass windows, the light of dawn slides down to gently caress each plant and a ray of sunlight makes its way through the adolescent's blond locks, giving the illusion that a halo surrounds his head like a golden crown.

The tiniest freckles kiss the skin of his nose, his brown eyes sparkling over hers.

"You're cute," Daphne whispers before realizing.

"Ah," Abraxas chuckles awkwardly, his hands gripping his mug tighter in his hands. “Well I —well. Thank you. You are also very cute.”

Unable to avoid it, the corners of her mouth raises a little. "I'm seriously, Abraxas."

He swallows, the action visible due to the movement it provokes in his throat and his cheeks are stained with deep crimson. "I've never been called that by someone before," he says, his eyes bright. Then his brow furrows and he says: "I haven't been kissed either."

She raises an eyebrow. "Is this how you flirt?"

"No, I don't..." Abraxas clears his throat. “You are my soulmate, I figured it's something you should know about me.’

Her third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry saw a change in the way the student population interacted before her eyes: all of her dorm's mates had started dating someone, except for her and Tracey Davis. However, the reason Tracey didn't went to dates in Hogsmeade like everyone else was because she and Susan Bones were pining for each other and neither of them had a clue.

Daphne's case was a cross between not being interested in dating and the fact that her father breaking the engagement contract between her and Draco Malfoy led to a flurry of rumors of her engagement to some powerful foreign family and no one would approach her with romantic intentions fearing the consequences.

It got them to leave her alone, so she didn't bother to rectify them.

Daphne and Abraxas are silent for a few uncomfortable heartbeats and then she says abruptly:

"I like you, Abraxas." And if she thought the blond's face was flushed before, it's nothing compared to the crimson that splashes his face now. “I'm not sure if I like you that way, but—”

"—I like you too!" He bites his lip, trying and failing to hide a genuine smile as he says it.

Daphne reaches out a hand and caresses his cheek with her thumb. The skin underneath is smooth, his freckles illuminated by the carmine blush that sprinkles them.

“Can you be my first kiss?” Abraxas whispers, so low she barely hears him. “If you don't want to, that's totally fine, you don't have to feel a pressure to—"

Daphne forms a slow smile, her ears heating up, and cuts off the other's words as she leans in. Their lips meet halfway, her mouth soft and warm against hers. Abraxas tastes like chocolate and cinnamon on her tongue. Daphne thinks it's nice, and still ...

There are no Leprechauns flailing on her rib cage or hippogriff babies flying around her stomach. There are none of the things that Pansy Parkinson or Millicent Buldstrode used to explain what feels like when kissing someone.

They both part at the same time, barely inches apart, their breaths tickling the other's skin as they declare in unison: “Nope”

"That was nice," Abraxas continues, "but I don't ...”

"... I don't want to do it again," Daphne confesses. 

“Exactly!” The blonde brings his hand to hers, which still rests on his face and squeezes it gently. “I think I only like you as a friend, Daphne.”

"And I like you as a friend, Abraxas."

The soulmarks sing on her skin in a way they didn't during the kiss, and they both smile at each other, a feeling of genuine comfort seeping into the magic dancing around them.

Belatedly, she thinks that all of this must be a crazy dream: to kiss her soulmate at sunrise, the smell of hot chocolate and flowers oozing into the air along with the dew of the grass below and the warm sun on their skins as Abraxas Malfoy's lips curl shyly.

And she doesn't feel like a freak this time just because she doesn't want to fall madly in love with her soulmate. Not the way a part of her secretly felt since the first time she knew about how persons with a dead soulmate are supposed to felt o how rare platonic soulmates are outside twin brothers. 

"It was my first kiss too," Daphne whispers and can feel Abraxas tense under her hand.

“Was it what you expected?” he asks, suddenly unsure.

"No," she admits, separating her hand from the other's face, "But I think it was better"

.

Lord Malfoy arrives shortly after dinner and his welcome to Daphne is ... charming.

“Absolutely not! Did you became mad?”

"Father, I get your reluctance, but she is my soulmate."

"I understand," Lord Malfoy says to his wife, ignoring his son. “You've always wanted a daughter, but I thought letting you dress Abraxas in those princess dresses in his childhood was enough to stop those desires of yours.”

Abraxas makes a choking sound, his ears pink, but he keeps the mask of stoicity on his immovable face.

"This discussion is between you and your heir, Lord Malfoy," Abraxas's mother says simply. “However, the girl has shown exceptional behavior in recent days and she is your son's soulmate, do you expect us to kick her out?”

The man slurres his words, a disdainful eyebrow moving across his forehead. "As you said, she is his soulmate, and still you suggest that we adopt her as a daughter? Don't you see how twisted that is? I could consider a marriage, but we don't know how pure her blood is yet.”

"Lord Malfoy," Daphne's voice interrupts, "the bond between Abraxas and I is purely platonic, so a brotherhood relationship is all we will develop. And the practice of hosting the soulmates of family members is a tradition of pureblood society that I wasn't aware Malfoy House often ignores.”

The ice blue gaze of Abraxas's father studies her slowly. His long pale hair tied in a low bun at the nape of his neck, the compound features like a marble statue on his face and his hands clenched on the serpent-headed staff that, Daphne knows, conceals a wand that has belonged to the Malfoy family since its creation painfully reminds her of Lucius.

Despite the sweat slipping down her warm hands clenched in her lap and her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Daphne stares back with a flawless serene exterior.

She can feel a gentle pressure on her mind that she discards with the oclumancy shields her father has taught both her and her sister since childhood and allows herself a toothy smile when Daphne catches the flicker of surprise in the other's eyes. 

"It seems ... I am outnumber this time," the man sighs dismissively.

A spark to her left catches her attention and Lady Malfoy places a newly transfigured silver goblet in Daphne's hands. Abraxas connects his arms to hers with a triumphant smile that dances on his lips and the family enters a door that connects to a hallway plunged in darkness. Lamps hanging on the wall light up with a soft click as they go, casting yellowish light their way.

They go out into an area of the garden manor that Daphne sees for the first time. The silver moon illuminates the ground, allowing her to observe the circle of roughly runes drawn on a stone podium.

They enter the circle and Abraxas lets go her arm when he positions her in the center.

Daphne holds her breath when she realizes what is happening. "Blood adoption is illegal without a member of the goblin community and a ministry worker to witness it," she mutters.

Lord Malfoy raises an eyebrow. “Do I care?”

The man waves his wand and crackling fire rises up around them, its bluish hue dancing between the runes and glowing above them. The crimson drips from the Malfoys' milky hands into the goblet.

And the chant begins.

Melodious words in a language Daphne does not know trickle from Lady Malfoy's lips, and her husband's voice reverberates over hers.

"I, Septimus II, Lord of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy, welcome Daphne to our name."

Magic, ancient and powerful, slides between their bodies and pecks at their skin as blood stains Daphne's lips. She contains the bile that rises up her throat by the metallic taste that melts on her tongue and she swallows hard.

Lord Malfoy slashes her hand with a wave of his wand and squeezes his own bleeding hand into her own, Abraxas and Lady Malfoy's hands quickly joining.

All Malfoys say in unison, "May fortune smile upon Daphne as long as her loyalty remains tied to our house, and may her be bathed in the most wrathful wrath if her confiability falters!"

Magic, ancient and powerful, slides between their bodies and pecks at their skin as mixed blood stains Daphne's lips. She contains the bile that rises up her throat to the metallic taste that melts on her tongue and she swallows.

Vibrant multi-color strands of light wrap around their joined hands, growing brighter before they suddenly disappear, leaving behind uncut palms. The fire goes out as well, leaving only the silver light of moon kissing their skins.

Daphne looks at her reflection in the goblet and studies her blonde hair three shades lighter, her more pronounced cheekbones and her slightly tapered nose. Her eyes, she realizes with relief, continue to be the green-flecked dark blue that every child of House Greengrass possesses.

She still looks like herself.

They remain silent for a few minutes, everyone's magic tickling their bones at the ritual performed.

Then Abraxas mutters, so low she almost lose the words: "I hope they all ignore the fact that I was disguised as a girl”

.

Later, when the darkness takes over the manor and she turns the wheels of the clock trying to magically make it take her back to her time, a house elf appears in Daphne's room informing her that Lord Malfoy is requesting her presence.

She hangs the watch around her neck again and leaves the room.

Daphne only realizes that she's in the same nightgown she came this decade in, now clean, until she knocks on the man's office door. "Come in," says Lord Malfoy's voice.

She looks at the fabric that reaches to the middle of her thighs, leaving her legs exposed in a way that can be considered indecent and sighs as she enters. The office is identical to Lucius's in her time, except for the obvious lack of questionable items and the addition of more books on the shelves. Lord Malfoy is sitting by the fireplace with a glass of red wine in his hand, the light shining on half his face as he turns to Daphne.

"Have a seat," he says.

She does it slowly, just a little self-conscious about her nightgown. Lord Malfoy waves his wand, and suddenly a long sheet covers the lower half of her body. “Thank, sir.”

“Where are you from, Daphne?”

"My parents are from England, that's why I have the accent," she lies, "but I was born and raised in France."

"Let me rectify my question," he smirks. “ _When_ are you from, Daphne? —Ah, don't look so surprised. The watch you are wearing is an heirloom of my family that I would recognize anywhere. And you, young lady, can only be a time traveler” 

Daphne thinks: _Oh no._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Augustus Rookwood is in Azkaban in canon, but for this fic Karkaroff only sold Barty Jr out.
> 
> I wish you all early happy holidays! Stay tune for the next chapter where we'll see Harry dealing with Grindelwalds acolytes and (hopefully) meeting Tom!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! English is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes. 
> 
> This fanfic can also be found in it's original spanish on Wattpad by the same username. 
> 
> Thank you if you've read this and have a nice day! <3


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